Dozens of forward-thinking ag tech companies showed off next gen vineyard solutions and products at the third annual FIRA-USA expo, held October 22-24 in Woodland. Solar-powered, real-time spore detectors, AI-enabled drones and electric autonomous tractors all strutted their stuff, giving glimpses of what many larger growers are already trialing behind the scenes.
Afternoon demos provided real-world examples of advanced technology ranging from Chinese-designed MQ Technologies’ orange carrier robot to the NAIO over-the-vine platform widely used in France, though most solutions were made in the U.S.
Equipment Highlights: Filling the Labor Gap
State-of-the-art solutions are works in progress approaching the ag tech field from many different angles and ideas. Top vendors demonstrated their equipment at the show.
Amos Power: A 90-hp Autonomous Electric Tractor
While the Monarch tractor was early to market in California, many growers have found its power too limited for their needs. They were excitedly looking at the Amos tractor designed by former John Deere engineer Tom Boe, who runs Amos Power from his base in Iowa. Introduced to the vineyard community in 2022, when it was demoed in Lodi and Napa, the tractor has been redesigned and upgraded and uses an Xbox remote to control it.
“The military told us, ‘Don’t waste time buying really expensive remotes. Just use Xbox. People understand them,’” Boe said.
For the sake of comparison, Amos is about double the horsepower of a Monarch, Boe estimated.
Amos has a battery life of 8 hours and takes about 8 hours to recharge. The whole thing weighs 7,200 lbs.
“That battery weighs probably about 2,500 of it,” Boe said. For that reason, changing the battery is an unwieldy task requiring equipment to raise and lower it once removed.
It costs $225,000.
“I think you’re going to start to see the electric power is going to start to pencil out pretty well,” said Boe, “when you compare that to diesel fuel.”
Labor savings are the biggest payoff, he said.
“Cal/OSHA has pretty much said they don’t regulate a farm field unless there’s humans in there, right? So, you can shut the field down, do a quick drive through, make sure there’s no humans, document it’s got no humans, and then OSHA doesn’t regulate it,” Boe said.
Boe said no one is taking jobs away from workers. “There are definitely people that say, ‘What about my job?’ But at the same time, there’s a lot of people that are saying, ‘We don’t have anybody showing up,’ right? People decided to quit showing up, so we’re filling the void as they quit showing up.
“We restrict our entire tractor to continuous horsepower. We never even go into the peak range. And the reason is we designed the entire tractor to be able to hit continuous horsepower, very close to 100 horsepower. It’s 90 [hp], what we measure, it’s 90 continuous horsepower,” he said.
“It doesn’t have a clutch and gear system. It does have three motors. We are, for the most part, the only electric tractor company that did that. Everybody else took an existing tractor, took the diesel out, put an electric motor in and powered the motor.”
After the FIRA show, Boe was busy doing demos all over California in Suisun Valley, Napa, Lodi, Livermore and Santa Maria.
Amos tractors are built in California’s Central Valley.
Monterey Pacific, which farms 16,000 acres of vineyards in Monterey and San Luis Obispo counties, has ordered one, Boe said.
Agtonomy: AI-Enabled Software Solution
Founded by Geyserville grower and vintner Tim Bucher of Trattore Farms, Agtonomy’s product is state-of-the-art artificial intelligence-enabled automation software used to control tractors growers already use.
In a show of force in an afternoon demo at FIRA, Agtonomy deployed three Doosan Bobcat tractors moving simultaneously and autonomously through parallel vineyard rows. They were all controlled from a single device.
In May, the company announced that Jorge Heraud, formerly John Deere’s vice president of automation and autonomy, joined Agtonomy’s board.
The company announced in October it has raised a total of $32 million from investors, making it one of the more well-capitalized new companies.
The company’s units are currently in use in trials with E. & J. Gallo, Silver Oak, Treasury Wine Estates and others. The company reports it has 25 units in service. Pricing ranges from $50,000 to $100,000.
Naio Technologies
Founded in 2011, Toulouse-based Naio Technologies in southern France is one of the more established robot companies in the vineyard robot world. Its co-founders also founded the FIRA expo.
“The robot offers effective and precise mechanical weeding, without herbicides, which respects your soil and crops,” said a company spokesperson via email. “We have dozens of TED robots at work in France and several in other European countries.”
Its two vineyard robots are JO and TED. Both come with five-year warranties.
JO is designed for narrower rows (one meter) and is half the price of a TED.
While state-of-the-art vineyard tech geeks have admired NAIO, it was not available in California until October, having just passed its FCC test.
Caine Thompson, general manager of O’Neill Vintners & Distilleries’ Robert Hall Winery, tried Naio’s TED out on the winery’s Paso Robles vines. “It’s an impressive machine that provides effective and accurate autonomous undervine weed control,” he said. “We found the quality of weeding was excellent through the various tool options available, which made it a simple machine to operate.”
A video demo featuring the French producer is on YouTube at youtube.com/watch?v=aal7XQ_9xcU.
2025 Global FIRA and FIRA-USA
The 2025 World FIRA expo will be held February 4-6 in Toulouse, France. More information is at world-fira.com.
The FIRA-USA event is a three-way partnership with GOFAR (a French nonprofit that runs the global FIRA agtech robotics show in Toulouse), UC ANR (and its innovation group The Vine) and Western Growers Association and its 2,200 grower-members. Next year, it will be held once again at the Yolo County Fairgrounds in Woodland in the fall.
“I was impressed by the FIRA event, especially since it is so young,” said Eric Pooler, vice president, viticulture, winery relations and bulk wine sales for Nuveen Natural Capital. “Vanguard technology, interactive demos and an impressive lineup of speakers broaching pertinent topics made it a valuable use of my time. The location in Woodland was excellent, too; relatively central for North State growers. It’ll be a do-not-miss for me in 2025.
