Robotics for Specialty Crops

Verdant Robotics based in Hayward, California was C0- founded by a farmer, Curtis Garner, and Roboticist, Gabe Sibley. The company focuses on developing technology valuable for the farming industry, in terms of precision agriculture, for return on investment.

“Allows the growers to save on their largest cost centers a lot like 50%, more from day one. And that's sort of how it gets started with us, you know, we get on the farm and we help with real problems that the growers have. But that's just the beginning. Because we very quickly start to unlock well, how do you increase yields with this technology? How do you grow larger produce, and those things are new value that's unlocked because of the technology and that's where the fun begins, because that's where that digitization step really unlocks new value. So that's it in a nutshell, it's, you know, this smart sharpshooter that's towed behind a trailer behind a tractor, excuse me delivering inputs at a very, very precise level.”

Sibley says there is a lot of focus on software because that is what controls the robot.

“Maybe a couple 100 megabytes of computer vision models. So it's about teaching the software how to behave. And that's great because we have to reengineer the hardware and software obviously you can change very rapidly.”

All manufacturing is done in the United States and a robot has a lifespan of four years, but that continues to improve as the technology improves. It is a service-based company meaning the farmer does not have to purchase the robot. As of right now the robots are being used on Apples and specialty crops. However, testing is currently being done on broad-acre row crops.