TopFarmRobots · Farm robots, weekly · Week of November 2, 2026
Hi there,
Welcome to issue six. Quick intro if you're new: I'm Carl Lippert, a farm owner and technologist. topfarmrobots.com is my side project, and this weekly email is where I share the farm robots I find.
This week: a 46-foot AI weeder that treats plant by plant, a scout that photographs fields at 1.5 mm, a robot that pollinates tomato flowers with puffs of air, and a student job building robots that pick mushrooms.
New on TopFarmRobots
TerraClear TerraScout
A self-driving field scout from TerraClear, the Washington company best known for rock-picking machines. Eight cameras photograph a 60-foot swath at 1.5 mm per pixel, and TerraClear says it covers 1,000+ acres a day. It runs 12+ hours on a 65 hp diesel at up to 15 mph, puts under 10 psi on the soil, fits 30-inch rows, and is built for corn, soybeans, canola, wheat and cotton. TerraClear is taking $1,000 refundable deposits, with first deliveries targeted for fall 2027. The indicative price is $150,000 plus $30,000 a year, or a $75,000-a-year lease.
Odd.Bot Maverick
A 500 kg autonomous weeder from Odd.Bot in the Netherlands that pulls weeds out, roots and all, with no chemicals. Its weeding modules work to 2 mm precision, and Odd.Bot says it can remove up to two weeds a second and more than 240,000 per hectare per day, running around the clock on swappable batteries. Working width adjusts from 1.50 to 2.25 m. It's built for carrots, onions, parsnips, red beet and chicory, and registrations are open for the 2027 season.
Ant Robotics VALERA CARRY
A solar-powered robot from Ant Robotics near Hamburg, Germany, that carries harvest crates down the rows so pickers don't have to. It follows the rows on its own, uses stereo cameras to spot people and obstacles, carries up to 800 kg, and adjusts to track widths from 1.5 to 2.2 m. Ant Robotics says it raises output per picker by up to 40%, and one trailer moves up to five robots between fields.
Company spotlight: Niqo Robotics
Niqo Robotics builds AI weeders that are pulled behind a tractor. Cameras sort crop from weed plant by plant, and the same pass can weed, thin and spray beneficials. On Oct 20 at FIRA USA in Yakima, Niqo showed its widest machine yet, the RoboWeeder F50. It has a 46-foot working width that extends to 50 feet, five bays, 14 cameras and 350 spray nozzles. It weighs about 4,900 lb, needs a tractor of 135+ hp, and covers up to 25 acres an hour at up to 4.7 mph. It folds for transport, and orders are open for 2027 delivery. The line now runs from a 20-foot model through the F24 to the F50.
Founder Jaisimha Rao said growers told Niqo its narrower machine couldn't keep pace with their operations, so the team designed the F50 in under six months. Niqo says it sells its machines without a software subscription, and says it can build a model for a new crop overnight at over 85% accuracy, then refine it to 99.6% within weeks. Niqo is also one of the startups testing this winter at Reservoir Farms in Yuma, Arizona (see Coming up).
Hear it from the founder: Rao was on The Modern Acre podcast on Oct 28. His interview starts around the 39-minute mark, and he goes back to starting the company in 2015.
Listen on Apple Podcasts · F50 announcement
Job of the week
Mechatronics – Control Systems Co-op Student (Winter 2027) at 4AG Robotics
4AG Robotics · Salmon Arm, British Columbia, Canada · student co-op · posted Oct 8, 2026
4AG builds robots that pick, trim and pack mushrooms. This is a student co-op on their control systems: writing C++ and PLC code, building and testing prototypes, and hands-on testing with the robots themselves, with possible visits to customer sites.
See the job and apply · 4AG on TopFarmRobots
Hiring at a company that builds farm robots? Hit reply and tell me about the role.
In the news
Ecorobotix adds 10 crop models to its ARA spot sprayer (Oct 29). The Swiss company says 10 new plant-recognition models, including garlic, leek and potato, go on sale in March 2027. Another 55, including peppers, zucchini and the weed yellow nutsedge, are free to test. That brings its catalog to more than 120 models. Ecorobotix says more than 1,000 ARA units are in use, they have treated over 600,000 hectares, and 2026 trials across 20+ countries cut inputs by 86% on average.
Why it matters: A camera sprayer only works in crops it can recognize, so every new model opens more fields to plant-by-plant spraying. Ecorobotix · ARA on TopFarmRobots
Biobest starts selling Polly, a tomato-pollinating robot (Oct 27). After five years of work with Arugga, Biobest has launched Polly for greenhouse tomatoes. It drives itself down the rows and uses bursts of air to release pollen, working alongside bumblebees. One robot covers a hectare. Biobest says trials showed 2–6% more yield, and that in most cases 1.5% is enough to pay for it. Growers can lease it for 12 months or buy it with a five-year warranty.
Why it matters: Tomato growers can now get a pollination robot from the same supplier many already buy bumblebees from. Biobest · Fruitnet · Arugga on TopFarmRobots
Sabanto's driverless planting will watch the planter, row by row (Oct 29). Sabanto, which retrofits tractors to drive themselves, says that for spring 2027 its system will work with planters running Precision Planting's Gen 3 20|20 monitor. It reads row-by-row planter performance against tolerances the grower sets, then reacts or alerts someone when a row is off.
Why it matters: Sabanto's Craig Rupp put it this way: "the tractor driving itself wasn't the hard part of planting – Trusting the planter without someone watching it was." PR Newswire · On TopFarmRobots
Worth watching
AgNet News Hour: GUSS co-founder Gary Thompson on running a fleet of driverless sprayers
Aired Oct 20, 2026. GUSS, from Kingsburg, California, makes self-driving orchard and vineyard sprayers. Thompson explains how one supervisor can run up to eight of them, and says GUSS machines have now sprayed more than 3 million acres. He also covers a redesigned interface, end-of-shift reports on refill times, idle time and obstacle stops, and how the team retrains the machines on what they flag as obstacles.
Listen to the episode · AgNet West write-up · GUSS on TopFarmRobots
Coming up
Reservoir Farms Open House – Yuma · Tue Dec 8, 2026, Yuma, Arizona
Reservoir Farms runs a winter testing site for ag-robotics startups in Yuma, with access to 500 acres of leafy greens and brassicas from October through March. Startups there this season include Niqo Robotics, TRIC Robotics and Agerpoint. The event page doesn't list a time or registration details yet.
Event page · About Reservoir Yuma · All upcoming events
Don't forget: if there's a farm robot you think I should cover, hit reply and tell me which one. — Carl
Building a farm robot? Submit it to the catalog with the "Submit a robot" button at topfarmrobots.com.