FarmFundr Favorites from World Ag Expo 2022
February 14, 2022
The World Ag Expo® is the world’s largest annual agricultural exposition. It is held right FarmFundr's backyard in the city of Tulare, California. As central valley natives and generational farmers, attending this expo has been a longstanding tradition of the FarmFundr team.
Over 1,200 exhibitors display the latest in farm equipment, communications, and technology on 2.6 million square feet of exhibit space. A wide variety of topics are covered in seminars for dairy producers, farmers, ranchers and agribusiness professionals. For anyone involved in agriculture, the World Ag Expo® is a must-attend event.
The most fascinating part of the expo is the innovation. Each year there are new strides in technology and efforts for more sustainable farming. For example, half of the Expo's Top-10 New Product winners offer electric or autonomous vehicles with the goal of lowering carbon emissions, reducing labor costs and increasing efficiency.
We first saw GUSS Automation at the 2020 World Age Expo. GUSS offers autonomous agricultural equipment. This year, they demonstrated their new, more compact version of GUSS. The mini GUSS allows vineyard, hops, blueberry, and high-density orchard growers to realize the many benefits of GUSS autonomous sprayers.
GUSS Automation’s website: gussag.com
PlantTape is an automated transplanting system. They offer an advanced, efficient, and flexible process for the sowing, germination, and transplanting of crops. We got to see plant tape in action. Learn more about PlantTape on their website here: www.planttape.com
The PlantTape Process, as stated on their website:
From the nursery, trays of PlantTape transplants are loaded into bins and shipped to the planting site. The PlantTape transplanter can accommodate 68 trays of seedlings. At 840 seedlings per tray, the transplanter holds around 57,000 plants. As the transplanter is pulled through the field, it's planter modules pull the PlantTape material from the trays. Each tray’s tape is clipped to the next to provide a seamless transplanting pull-through from tray to tray. The planter module cuts the tape between plants and places each seedling into the soil according to precise plant spacing and depth settings.
Blue White Robotics' has introduced “Robot as a Service”. Their technology allows farmers to adopt autonomous technology seamlessly and effectively. The robotics hardware adapts and attaches directly to existing equipment. The technology helps create a plan for year-round operations. While we’ve seen completely autonomous equipment before, this is the first we’ve seen autonomous software integrate with equipment a farmer may already have, especially this advanced.
https://www.linkedin.com/company/bluewhiterobotics/
This autonomous mummy removal rover is a personal favorite of FarmFundr COO, Hilary. This rover effectively and effortlessly removes mummies from nut trees using biodegradable pellets. Mummies are nuts that remain on the trees after harvest. It is important to remove mummies from almond trees because the darkened kernel remaining inside the mummy becomes a desirable food source for certain orchard pests.
While manual labor is the standard, time-consuming process, mummies can now be found and destroyed using InsightTrac's Patent Pending Rover.
Besides removing mummies, the Rover gathers information on the quantity, location, and type of nuts removed to help with orchard management and decision-making. We recommend you check out the video on their website. It’s fascinating! Visit here: www.insighttrac.com
Who doesn’t love drones? Even though drones aren't a "new" technology, their applications keep evolving. For example, this drone features a 30 liter spraying tank, taking spraying efficiency to new heights. Fruit trees can be sprayed more effectively using a revolutionary transforming body. By reducing fertilizer use and increasing yield through effective, data-driven best practices, the DJI T30 helps reduce fertilizer use and increase yield.
Learn more here: www.dji.com/t30
While providing excellent meals to Expo visitors, many of Tulare County’s non-profit organizations use World Ag Expo as a major fundraiser each year. Our personal favorite? A Tri Tip Sandwich supporting a local school. We think that any opportunity we have to help out local organizations is pretty cool.
We truly enjoy seeing what companies are coming up with and networking with other industry professionals to talk about what’s next. To see technology in agriculture advancing is just plain awesome.
Given the limited amount of farmland and the advancement of technology, it is clear that this is an ideal time to invest in farmland, and FarmFundr makes the investment process simple. We focus on high-profit potential, domestic specialty crop operations and give investor fractional ownership opportunities. Exploring these opportunities is easy. Sign up for a FarmFundr account to be the first to know when new opportunities become available.
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