advanced.farm featured in Good Fruit Grower’s “Apple-harvesting Robot Roundup”

The founders of advanced.farm notched their first commercial victory building robots to clean solar panels in the surging green energy market of California. Switching their attention to farming, they started their new company in 2018 and now have 16 harvest machines leased to five commercial strawberry farms. They train field workers how to operate them with an operations staff hovering nearby for troubleshooting.

They chose apples as their next project because of the industry’s hunger for a robotic solution and growers’ willingness to modify orchard structures, Ferguson said. The research commission has helped fund their development at $460,000, assuming the grant continues over the three-year plan. The company ran commercial trials on several varieties this year in the Columbia Basin and reached peak pick rates of 1,000 apples per hour. 

Read more at GoodFruit.com.