{"id":33799,"date":"2023-03-03T10:13:59","date_gmt":"2023-03-03T09:13:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.asparagusworld.com\/?post_type=news&p=33799"},"modified":"2025-07-08T06:44:13","modified_gmt":"2025-07-08T06:44:13","slug":"coming-soon-a-herd-of-green-asparagus-harvesting-robots","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/befve.com\/es\/news\/coming-soon-a-herd-of-green-asparagus-harvesting-robots\/","title":{"rendered":"A herd of green asparagus harvesting robots"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Demonstrating how a small herd of robots can work together to harvest asparagus is on the horizon next season for Muddy Machines<\/strong>. That\u2019s one way the AgTech and robotics company plans to use a new round of seed funding totalling \u00a31.5 million (over \u20ac1.7m) announced in August for its Sprout harvesting robot. The company\u2019s technology allows farmers to precision harvest crops like asparagus. It says Sprout<\/strong> \u2013 now on its 3rd prototype \u2013 can already drive through fields harvesting accurately for up to 16 hours a day before needing a recharge, therefore hugely increasing the picking window. The new round of funding will be used to strengthen the company\u2019s engineering team and build capacity to cope with more widespread adoption of its technology.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It will specifically focus on building a small herd of Sprout robots for the 2023 asparagus harvest season \u2013 all communicating with each other to autonomously harvest whole fields of asparagus \u2013 as well as generating initial revenues; continuing with the development of different crop harvesting capabilities; and planning production of the next generation of lightweight, battery-powered Sprout robots. Muddy Machines was founded in 2020 by Christopher Chavasse and Florian Richter with a vision to use robots to sustainably solve pressing labour issues in farming. The company has previously won nearly \u00a32.5m in grants from Innovate UK and DEFRA.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sprout has the support of UK\u2019s largest asparagus grower Cobrey Farms<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Muddy Machines has been developing its Sprout robot through trials this year on Redhill Farm, in South West England. Part of Cobrey Farms, the UK\u2019s largest growers of asparagus<\/strong>, the startup has been provided with a portacabin office and barn to use as a workshop there. John Chinn of Cobrey Farms said it\u2019s generally believed that robotic selective harvesting of fruit and vegetables, such as asparagus, is still a few years away from being commercially available and viable. \u201cHowever, I believe Muddy Machines may well be the first to market with their asparagus harvest robot,\u201d he said, with harvesting of Tenderstem and courgette likely to follow a few years later. In return for its collaboration, Cobrey Farms<\/strong> has been promised first right of refusal on the robots for asparagus harvesting for the first two years of their commercial availability. While there\u2019s been remarkable progress with machine learning and the ability to recognise harvestable asparagus spears \u2013 leaving young spears for another day and not trying to harvest a weed \u2013 the next challenge is to improve the mechanics of cutting them, Chinn said.<\/p>\n\n\n