Another ag tech award this week goes to a long-time local business, T&A.

Successful farming has always required an element of instinct, and it still does, but one take-home message of Thursday's agricultural technology conference in Salinas was that farmers are increasingly becoming technologists.

Advances in everything from pesticides to GPS-programmed tractors to plant breeding (and now genetic modification) have long been part of farming, but tech is likely to play an ever-bigger role. 

That's what George Tanimura, one of the fathers of Spreckels-based Tanimura & Antle, told the Weekly last year, and it's being borne out by a younger generation at T&A right now. 

Brian Antle accepted an award from Forbes, one of the hosts of Thursday's ag tech summit, for T&A's new venture: Plant Tape. 

T&A was recognized for innovation, alongside companies transforming garbage into fertilizer and using computers to scan foods for healthful peptides deep in their molecular structure.

T&A acquired Plant Tape, a Spanish company, in 2013. Brian Antle first met Plant Tape reps at a seed trial in 2012.

Since then, they've been trialing the transplanting technology in the Salinas Valley, where they can get 25 acres of lettuce seedlings planted with just three people in a day, compared to the traditional 10 acres, and 15-person workforce, in a day. 

You can see how the transplanting belts work in this video:

T&A hopes to take Plant Tape from a trial stage to commercial by late next year or early in 2017. 

Considering a labor shortage in the Salinas Valley, the need for technology is likely to feel increasingly urgent. Facing a shortage of local workers, T&A has proposed building housing for seasonal guest workers from Mexico. Community members in Spreckels have been speaking out in opposition to the proposed housing.