Bringing Precision and Automation to Agriculture

Tim Hammerich

News Reporter

Farmers everywhere try to minimize the amount of spraying they need to do in orchards. In order to keep their crops healthy but not overspray, some are embracing precision and automation. GUSS automation COO Gary Thompson says many times in orchards and vineyards they need complete coverage as efficient as possible.

Thompson…. “A lot of these sprays are a hundred gallons per acre, so you want to maintain that the whole time you're spraying. It's all computer controlled. It's all being monitored full-time so if any one of those parameters gets off, it's going to send an alert. It's going to notify the guy that's supervising the machines and he can take action.”

Thompson says in other areas the rate needs to be variable, such as for many of their customers in Florida.

Thompson… “Any mature grove in Florida is infected to some degree by greening. So you got a very large tree next to a tree that died maybe last year and was reset with a baby tree next to a tree that was reset two or three years ago, which is a medium size. So we actually use three sensors per side on that machine. If it sees a small tree with the bottom sensor, it just turns on the bottom third of the manifold, two sensors for a medium tree will turn on two thirds of the manifold, and then a mature tree it'll turn on the whole side of the manifold. So we do utilize some of these sensors for select customers.”

Thompson says this is just the beginning of bringing precision and automation to agriculture.