West Coast Nut September 2019

MORE EFFICIENCY
WITH LESS LABOR:
THE COMING AGE
OF AUTONOMOUS
EQUIPMENT
By BRIAN GERMAN | Contributing Writer
Autonomous sprayer making a spray application in an almond orchard.
All photos courtesy of Gary Thompson, GUSS Automation, LLC.
THE AGRICULTURE INDUSTRY
has been steadily adopting more
and more digital advancements
that have been made available since
the coming of the new millennium.
The implementation of technological
breakthroughs appears to be coming
at a more rapid pace as connectivity
improvements and software innovations
increasingly develop. One particular
area of technological advancement that
is projected to grow significantly in
the coming years is the development
and demand for autonomous farming
equipment.
Autonomous farm equipment can
include tractors, harvesters, thinners,
sprayers, as well as any other equipment
that does not require a human operator
to be onboard the machine to operate
it. Using autonomous equipment can
assist growers in a multitude of areas.
For California farmers in particular, the
necessity of maximizing the efficiency
of an orchard in every possible area is
highlighted by the consistently increasing
number of regulations combined
with the steadily declining amount of
available labor.
“We talk to so many growers that say,
‘I’ve got this equipment, that’s not the
problem. I can’t find the people; therefore,
I’m not getting the sprays on my
trees that I need to get on. So, if I can
just get the sprays on my trees, that’s
going to be huge for the return to me,
that my crop will give me,’” said Gary
Thompson, Marketing Director for
GUSS Automation, LLC.
GUSS is an acronym for ‘Global
Unmanned Spray System.’ The GUSS
rig is an autonomous-driving agricultural
sprayer invented by Dave
Crinklaw, initially as a means of
improving the efficiency of his own
commercial spraying business. The lack
of available labor to operate tractors
necessitated the creation of a driverless
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West Coast Nut September 2019