Burros in Table Grapes

  • Burros have been extensively perfected in table grape production in the US over the past 5 years.
  • Burros are designed to progressively enable automation of crops like Table Grape, beginning with autonomous movement of fruit and from the field and building towards crop data analysis, and later high dexterity autonomy (picking, pruning, etc.)
  • Today, Burros typically support 6-8 people / unit and yield 15-40%+ gains / person

How are Burros used in Table Grape production?

Within Table Grapes, Burros can carry/act as harvest assist devices, capture crop data, and serve as a platform for tasks like UV lighting for powdery mildew treatment as well.

Harvest
Assist

Scouting & Capturing
Crop Data

Platform for tasks including
UV Lighting & Picking

ROI in Harvest Assist

  • Burros 10-50% gains, depending on layout, fruit volume, and other parameters
  • The chart below illustrates gains observed in A/B comparisons in production settings in the 2020-2022 harvest seasons

How are they used in Harvest Assist?

See this video which runs through things you can do to help Burros run smoothly. In short, relatively clean rows without too many weeds or vines hanging down, push packing tables to the opposite row and pick out full rows so that Burros can enter/exit easily, and train your crews so they understand how best to use Burro.

The images below illustrate how we see table grape growers laying out their harvesting crews on top, and the optimal way we have observed to harvest with Burros below.

Setup 1: 6-8 people / Burro in a group

  • videos herehere, and here
  • Totes are ID’ed with no leaf, one leaf, dried leaf or a stick
  • Users become a group, and are responsible for operating Burros, but teams remain
  • Consistent gains (20-30% gains across 6-8 people)

Central Field Pack

  • Some growers are moving to Central Field Pack production.  In this style use, the pack team is a production line with the process of packing broken down
  • Pickers pick field totes and scan them onto Burro (video here); data goes online for management
  • People paid individually for performance
  • 30-50%+ gains across 6-8 people / robot, with better QC are attainable in this format, although it requires more extensive production workflow changes

Want to try Burro?

Click the links below to try/buy, or to talk to our sales team!