GUSS Eschews Multi-Purpose "Platform" Play to Stick with Autonomous Crop Spraying

The company is also not interested in creating a robot-as-a-service business.

I learned so many interesting tid-bits about agricultural crop spraying during my recent chat with Gary Thompson, COO of autonomous sprayer company GUSS that I don’t want to bury them in some lengthy intro. Not only do these bits shed light on how big farms work, but they also provide additional context around why self-driving robots can be useful for ag companies. Did you know:

• Most crop spraying happens at night because the extreme heat of the day can diminish the efficacy of the chemicals being applied

• Because crops are sprayed at night, it’s more of a challenge to find people to do the job — you know on top of the fact that the work requires being in close proximity to pesticides and other chemicals for extended periods of time

• If a human drives a crop sprayer too quickly (more than 2 - 3 mph), the sprayer doesn’t create enough turbulence and therefore the chemical application does not cover all of the leaves on a tree

• GPS for vehicle navigation does not work very well under the den…