Technology helping to save labor in Santa Maria

Everyone is talking about automating field work on farms, but is anyone doing anything about it?

The answer is yes — in fact, Santa Maria shippers counted several important technological developments and labor-saving automation in the past several years.

Mechanical harvesting was mentioned by several shippers, but there are other innovations that have been meaningful.

“One farming innovation that comes to mind is the remote ‘Lodar’ system we install on each tractor, which allows foremen to be 50 yards away and be able to start/stop/accelerate the tractor without having a physical operator,” said Matt Hiltner, marketing coordinator for Babé Farms, Santa Maria, Calif.

Steve Adlesh, partner with Beachside Produce LLC, Guadalupe, Calif., said recent innovations include mechanical harvesting of Brussels sprouts and new fabrication in strawberry harvesting equipment.

“Single-use drip tape and mass drip tape retrieval is the most important technology for growers in the past five years,” said Philip Adam, chief operating officer of Santa Maria-based Innovative Produce.

Tom Cline, sales manager for Durant Distributing, Santa Maria, also said growers are using more drip tape than sprinklers because of its advantages.