October 2020 - 7

Built for Florida- and northernCalifornia-style
beds, Harvest CROO runs
four beds wide.
" We're currently able to clear a plant in
about 8 seconds - that's clearing at least
three berries off of the plant, " Wishnatzki
said. " And the robot itself has a total of 16
robotic heads ... we're clearing 16 plants in
about 8 seconds.
Growers interested in the program are
encouraged to visit harvestcroo.com.
Advanced.farm
Advanced.farm co-founder Kyle Cobb
provided the following written update to
Vegetable Growers News:
" As you know, we closed a $7.5 million
Series A round in August 2019 with
Yamaha and Kubota as lead investors,
joining our previous seed-stage investors,
Catapult Ventures and Impact Ventures. At
that point, we were riding tailwinds from
a successful season of picking with our
'T6' prototype, a semi-autonomous tractor
with six robotic arms designed specifically
for in-soil strawberry harvesting. With the
T6, we became the first company to sell
robotically-picked strawberries into the
fresh market retail channel.
" Over the past year, we have built on
this momentum to become a leader in
robotic harvesting. We deployed our newly
designed TX robotic strawberry harvesters
across all three major growing regions
in California (Oxnard, Santa Maria and
Salinas/Watsonville), and we worked with
industry-leading grower-shippers such
as GoodFarms. Working closely with our
grower partners, we picked hundreds of
Anderson said in a short presentation
during the field day that the system includes
a patented gripper, an intelligent vision
system and a durable robotic environment.
Traptic's robot is a machine of some
experience, he added.
" We've demonstrated that this system
Advanced.farm automatic strawberry harvesters. Photo: Kyle Cobb
pounds of fruit every day in a season when
labor supply was particularly top-of-mind.
We will continue to work with GoodFarms
and others in the coming year, optimizing
field operations and continuing to improve
our technical performance (yes, there are
still some bugs to work out!).
" We know that our success is predicated
on growers' success. Our equipment is
designed to be practical - we consider
compliance with food safety protocols,
ease of training new operators and ease
of maintenance - and it is designed to be
affordable. We have a flexible business
model that allows growers to lease
equipment (with our team providing
maintenance and support) or choose
a pay-as-you-go, piece-rate model. We
continue to approach the problems we
face with humility, working shoulder-toshoulder
alongside our grower partners to
make improvements as fast as we can to
bring a product to market at scale soon.
" One of the aspects of our work that
we are particularly excited about is our
advanced.jobs initiative, which outlines
the two main ways we are working with
our grower partners to make positive
change to the farm workforce: 1) by
building robots to tackle the hardest tasks
facing humans today, and 2) by training
the farm workforce with the skills
needed to support operations of the next
generation of farm equipment. Growers
are welcome to read more about this,
and our other guiding principles, on our
website, www.advanced.farm.
" We regularly host demos in the field,
and would welcome any interested growers
to email us at info@advanced.farm. "
Traptic
Another company invited to the field
day was Traptic, whose investors include
Homebrew Ventures, K9 Ventures
and Sinovation Ventures, according to
Traptic's website.
Traptic co-founder and CEO Lewis
together is capable of picking berries at
very high quality, " Anderson said. " We're
into our fifth year of field operations, and
most importantly, we've been running
every day for the last 1.5 years of that.
We've demonstrated the ability to run all
day, every day, for long periods of time.
We're out picking berries continuously.
We've tested in every time of year, every
field condition, We've tested different plant
varieties, every geographic area. We've
tested in early season, midseason, late
season. We were out in Oxnard through
late May. We've been out in Watsonville
through late September. And most
importantly, we've found a way to harvest
every berry on the ranch for same or lower
cost than what you're paying now, and in a
way that increases your yield overall. "
Anderson added that the group is
expanding the robots' availability.
" We are starting large-scale deployments
very soon, so if you're a grower, come
talk to us about doing a commercial
deployment, " he said. " We're getting a lot of
interest and would like to fit you in. Come
talk to me about how we can harvest
every berry on your ranch, for fixed
costs per tray. "
Growers are encouraged to contact the
company at Lewis@Traptic.com or
760-845-8171, he said. VGN
GREENHOUSES
ANY CLIMATE,
ANY CROP
FOR OVER
40 YEARS
GROWSPAN HAS
BEEN HELPING
GROWERS
ENERGY-EFFICIENT DESIGNS
ENVIRONMENTAL CONTROL
EXPERT CONSULTATION
IN-HOUSE SERVICES
www.growspan.com
877.835.9996
VGN | OCTOBER 2020 | 7
http://www.harvestcroo.com http://www.advanced.farm http://www.growspan.com
October 2020

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of October 2020
