As a child, Megan Jacobsen, “a born-and-raised farm girl,” said she never believed she would see a laser killing weeds. But that’s become a reality at Oxnard, Calif.-based Gills Onions, where she now serves as vice president of sales and marketing.
The company, which grows onions, lettuce and other crops, put a futuristic-looking machine called a Laserweeder, manufactured by Seattle-based Carbon Robotics, to work at its Brawley, Calif., location early this year and will transport the device to other locations as the year progresses.
“Our Laserweeder follows our growing pattern,” Jacobsen said.
Until recently, growers had to rely on herbicides or hand weeding to rid their fields of undesirable plants.
The Laserweeder not only eliminates weeds or other unwanted plants, but uses artificial intelligence to store information to improve its future performance.
“Information this machine is collecting from Gills Onions in the field is automatically sent up to the cloud,” she said.
“We hear a lot about AI,” Jacobsen said. “This is an example of how we can use artificial intelligence for the betterment of the environment, agriculture, our workers and our overall operation.”
The Laserweeder can be programmed to weed other kinds of fields as well, and it can detect and eliminate remnants from crops that were previously grown there.
“The machine knows this is an onion field, and it considers a tomato plant a weed,” she said. “If the laser detects anything other than an onion, it will kill it.”
Carbon Robotics started selling Laserweeders two years ago, said Paul Mikesell, CEO and founder.
The company had built 80 of them as of late April and expected to have 100 in service within the next couple of months. There’s typically a three- to four-month wait to obtain a Laserweeder, depending on inventory.
Mikesell said his goal for growers is to have the machine pay for itself in one to three years through cost savings for things like labor and herbicides.
The machine can cover about 20 acres per day and do the work of 70 field workers, he said. They’re used with more than 100 crops. Onions, carrots and leafy greens are some of the most common.
Should there be a problem with the machine, Carbon Robotics’ support team will be on the scene quickly to resolve the issue.
“We never leave a grower hanging,” Mikesell said.
“If the machine breaks down or something happens in the field, they will have someone out in less than 24 hours to service the machine,” Jacobsen said.
Laserweeder is a welcome tool for companies like Gills Onions that care about the environment and the soil, she added.
“I’m a huge sustainability person,” she said. “Being able to eliminate the herbicide to kill weeds is a huge step in sustainability.”
In a video describing the Laserweeder, Steve Gill, owner/partner at Gills Onions, said he and his brother David carefully evaluated the potential savings and benefits of the Laserweeder before making the purchase.
“Having a Laserweeder is a necessity now,” he said. “It’s an invention that we’re going to have a pretty hard time living without.”
