Why John Deere Just Spent $305 Million on a Lettuce-Farming Robot Company
WHY JOHN DEERE JUST SPENT $305 MILLION ON A
LETTUCE-FARMING ROBOT
By TOM SIMONITE BUSINESS 09.06.1708:23 PM
LOOK OUT WEEDS. Tractor giant John Deere just spent $305
million to acquire a startup that makes robots capable of identifying unwanted
plants, and shooting them with deadly, high-precision squirts of herbicide.
John Deere, established in 1837 to manufacture hand
tools, announced it had acquired Blue River Technology, founded in 2011, late
Wednesday.
Deere already sells technology that uses GPS to automate
the movements of farm vehicles across a field to sub-inch accuracy. John Stone,
an executive in the company's intelligent-solutions group, says Blue River’s
computer-vision technology will help Deere's equipment view and understand the
crops it is working with. “Taking care of each individual plant unlocks a lot
of economic value for farmers,” Stone says.
The deal highlights the growing appetite for high tech in
agriculture. Many companies are using drones to help farmers by collecting data
on crops to plan spraying or other operations. Stone says that Blue River’s
technology can make a larger impact on productivity because it makes decisions
up close, on the ground.
Pesticides and other chemicals are traditionally applied
blindly across a whole field or crop. Blue River’s systems are agricultural
sharp shooters that direct chemicals only where they are needed.
The startup’s robots are towed behind a regular tractor
like conventional spraying equipment. But they have cameras on board that use
machine-learning software to distinguish between crops and weeds, and automated
sprayers to target unwanted plants.
The company says its first product, LettuceBot, already
has a hand in roughly 10 percent of US lettuce production. It is used on fields
with young lettuce plants, targeting weeds as well as plants that are too
small, or growing on top of one another.
This season Blue River tested a second system for cotton
farmers, ahead of a planned commercial launch in 2018. That system can target
weeds with squirts of herbicide no larger than a postage stamp. Willy Pell,
director of new technology at Blue River, says the system has shown it can
reduce herbicide use by 90 percent.
Blue River, which has roughly 60 employees, will operate
as an independent brand, from its base in Sunnyvale, California. Pell says that
the company plans to develop versions of its technology for other crops such as
soybeans and corn. Blue River also wants to deploy its computer-vision software
in harvesting and seed planting equipment so it can adapt to variations in the
size of soil clods or corn plants across a field.
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