Thank you Sun World International for hosting and supporting us, and thank you Ben Palone and all the growers attending for your excitement and feedback! It's clear that labor availability is a massive issue in table grapes and we're excited to be pioneering a robotic solution.
Great #fielddemo event today in Wasco CA. Sun World International had their annual field day showcasing their latest varieties. Adding some high-tech to this field day was Tortuga AgTech, demoing their machine for table grape harvesting. There’s lots of help needed for table grape harvesting. From the 2018 census data, hand labor harvesting accounted for ~30 MILLION hours to harvest a total of ~87,000 acres of table grapes. That’s a lot of hours ripe (horrible farm pun intended) for automation solutions. The tortuga machine is the first I’ve seen in table grape harvesting. #agtech #tablegrapes #innovation