Farming GT hoeing robot: 60 sold, but Dutch grower still tweaks

Around 60 Farming GT hoeing robots have been sold in Europe since 2019, and four of them now work the clay of North Holland — enough of an installed base to judge whether autonomy actually pays on Dutch organic ground.

The machine's pedigree helps. Its technical roots go back to the BoniRob of 2009, a joint project between Amazone, Bosch and Osnabrück University of Applied Sciences. Manufacturer Farming Revolution, founded in 2019, turned that platform into a commercial tool carrier. The first Dutch unit sold directly in 2025; from April 2026, sales and service in the region run through Kooiman Mechanisatie in Andijk.

That dealer arrangement was decisive for Ted and Nicoline Vaalburg in Zuidschermer, who bought a 6-row Farming GT earlier this year for their organic celeriac and pumpkins. "It is important that the dealer stands behind a product and that you can rely on good service and support," Ted Vaalburg said. "The Farming GT has proven itself in practice and there is a team of arable farmers and engineers behind the company. All of that creates confidence."

Why swap a camera hoe for a robot?

Kooiman had previously supplied the Vaalburgs a Poulsen Robovator, which hoes in the row using chlorophyll detection of crop plants. It works, Vaalburg said, but he expected camera technology to have moved further by now. A demo of another robot brand proved disappointing — "it seemed as though autonomy was further away than expected" — before he was pointed to the Farming GT.

What does this change for the business case? Labour, mostly. The farm normally hires 8 seasonal workers with hand hoes. "The labour supply is not a problem, but I notice that skill levels are declining and costs are rising," Vaalburg said. He calculated a 3-year payback. After the first few months, that target moved to 4 years.

The machine itself

The Farming GT is a 4-, 6- or 8-row hybrid autonomous tool carrier, four-wheel drive and four-wheel steered, hoeing both between and in the row. Key figures:

• Track width adjustable in 15 minutes, from 1.35 to 2.40 metres
• Working width 1.5 to 3 metres; minimum row spacing 25 cm with the newer hoeing element
• Weight 2,040 kg in 6-row configuration
• 10 hp single-cylinder Hatz diesel, 30-litre tank, charging the batteries on demand
• Working speed 2.5 km/h maximum, rising to 3.5 km/h from 2027
• More than 100 crops covered by recognition algorithms — a legacy of the Bosch years
• Price: from €167,000 excluding VAT for the 4-row, €187,000 for the 6-row; support free for 2 years, then €3,000 per year optional

No solar panel, deliberately — simplicity and weight won that argument. An on-board rain sensor stops the machine automatically when precipitation crosses a threshold. And after feedback from Vaalburg, users can now define zones where the diesel engine must not start, useful when hoeing beside a built-up area.

Set-up lessons from season one

Vaalburg wanted the 6-row machine on a 3-metre track width. Impossible. "Because of the low weight, we now accept that the robot drives down the middle of the bed," he said — a 2.00-metre track straddling the celeriac bed.

Blade choice took experimentation too. Twisted blades on sandy soil gave way to flat blades, which disturb less soil on heavier ground. The blades initially bulldozed soil and cost a few plants, so Vaalburg set them at a more penetrating angle and narrowed the in-row overlap from 2.5 to 1.5 centimetres. Current capacity: 6 to 7 hectares per day. His target is 8.

His daughter handles field set-up in the app — geofence, safety zones along watercourses, working area, route, start point. One misjudged stop line too close to the geofence left the robot driving back and forth until it dug itself in. Vaalburg prefers hoeing row by row, so a continuous block is always finished if rain interrupts work.

What's still missing

Celeriac is a hard test — open crop, difficult weeds, blades working close under the canopy — yet the robot did its work "very neatly" this season, he said. Two gaps remain: no alarm when the hoeing arm stops moving, and no grower access yet to the crop-detection database. Vaalburg wants that data for spot spraying and targeted foliar applications.

The open question is a wet year on heavy soil. Watch whether the 3.5 km/h speed upgrade lands on schedule in 2027 — and whether the payback math holds at 8 hectares a day.