Fira USA: autonomous Kubota M5L debut and a 15.2m spot sprayer

More than 2,500 visitors from 20 countries, including over 600 growers, came to the Yakima SunDome in Washington State from 20 to 22 October for the fifth edition of Fira USA. It was the first time the agricultural robotics event, organised since 2022 by the Global Organisation for Agricultural Robotics (Gofar), was held in the north-western United States. The headline launches on the ground: a world-first autonomous Kubota M5L narrow-track tractor and a 15.2-metre-wide mounted spot sprayer from India's Niqo Robotics.

Why the location matters

The organisers move the three-day event almost every year to attract different exhibitors and grower groups, and the annual turnout typically sits between 2,000 and 2,500 visitors. This year's venue, roughly a 2.5-hour drive from Seattle, sits in the heart of the Yakima Valley fruit-growing region. Alongside the indoor stands, visitors watched demonstrations of autonomous tractors, weeding robots, spot sprayers and precision sprayers, plus dozens of plenary sessions and panel discussions. Around 900 local school and college students explored agtech careers on the final day.

Labour remains the biggest challenge

A recurring theme in conversations with manufacturers and growers was labour availability, mirroring the situation in Europe. Migrant workers are still available, but government policies are pushing up shortages and costs. Still, growers demand a real return on automation investments.

Ellie Norris of Norris Blueberry Farms in Oregon spelled out the calculus. "During harvesting, it is about having sufficient capacity and minimising losses. Those harvesting machines are already very expensive, and the costly automation options do not save me that much labour," she said. This year she invested in software to optimise harvest forecasting, harvesting, transport, packing and storage, and she built her own AI assistant for data analysis.

Among the hardware aimed squarely at labour savings was Aigen's solar-powered Element weeding robot, designed for mechanical weed control in row crops such as potatoes, maize, soybeans and tomatoes. It comes with two, three or four arms offering overlapping coverage and a choice of blades, covers 2 to 4 hectares per day, and costs between €44,700 and €62,500 plus an annual fee of €3,575. Twelve units are already running in the US.

What did Kubota and Agtonomy launch?

The autonomous Kubota M5L made its world debut at the Yakima SunDome. Kubota developed it with US company Agtonomy, and it targets fruit and nut growers in the US. It is Agtonomy's third autonomous machine, following the Bobcat CT4045 compact tractor and the Kubota M5N, with which the M5L shares its autonomous technology.

Winegrower and Agtonomy co-founder Tim Bucher began by converting Bobcat and Kubota tractors, including the M5N, into autonomous machines. He now works with both manufacturers. "As a small player, you need those manufacturers for the vehicles, their distribution networks and their financial resources, which they use to finance farmers' investments. Without that, I believe you have no chance of succeeding as a small agtech company," he told a panel discussion. Notably, Kubota picks a different autonomy partner per continent: in Europe it works with France's Agreenculture.

Nearby, a Kubota M5N-092 drove autonomously through a makeshift orchard, fitted with a retrofit kit from Kingman Ag. The kit was developed on the Kingman family's 3,000-hectare farm in California, and the company claims to be the only supplier of such kits, an exaggeration, but it stands out for using fisheye cameras instead of LiDAR (light detection and ranging) sensors.

Where are the other tractor majors?

Agco, CNH and John Deere currently focus their autonomy programmes on tractors too large for fruit growing and viticulture, but their representatives were visible throughout the event, scouting for promising technologies and start-ups. New Holland sent robotics specialists from Europe and North America, while its regional dealer Burrows Tractor showed Yamaha's autonomous Prospr 2400 orchard sprayer, WEED-IT spot spraying systems and trailed orchard sprayers.

John Deere concentrated on the autonomous GUSS orchard sprayer, a company it acquired just over a year ago after a 2022 joint venture. Sean Sundberg of John Deere said the manufacturer now produces GUSS vehicles more cost-effectively, cutting the price from $317,000 to $280,000. John Deere also demonstrated Smart Apply, a retrofit kit acquired in 2023 that lets orchard sprayers target individual trees.

How wide can a spot sprayer get?

European readers know the Ecorobotix Ara and Farm-ING SpotSprayING; both also operate in North America, competing with Verdant Robotics' SharpShooter and Niqo Robotics' RoboWeeder. Niqo had offered mounted spot sprayers at 6.1 and 7.3 metres. At Fira USA it introduced the RoboWeeder F46 and F50 at 14 metres and 15.2 metres respectively, configurable with one or more nozzle rows for spot spraying and plant-specific applications, and aimed partly at chemical lettuce thinning.

Founder Jaisimha Rao calls the F50 the widest mounted spot sprayer in North America. It weighs 2,200 kg, needs a tractor of at least 135 hp and costs $600,000 (over €535,000), with no recurring charges. The 6.1-metre version costs $350,000 (about €312,500).

Crop sensing also featured. Greek company EdenCore showed its Viewer crop camera, which scans fruit trees from both sides and counts buds, blossoms and fruit on crops such as apples and pears, priced at €15,000 to €20,000. Start-up Orchard Robotics offers its FruitScope Vision camera only as a service, at roughly €2.55 to €3.32 per hectare, competing with Aurea Imaging, Bloomfield Robotics (now Kubota), EdenCore and Vivid Machines. Canadian apple grower Finite Farms drew considerable interest with a prototype modular system for automated mechanical apple thinning: next season it will test 50 arms across ten platforms. Growers should watch the M5L's rollout with Agtonomy and the RoboWeeder F50's first North American field runs as the next markers of scale in orchard automation.