Full-season, supervised, side-by-side field trial comparing a Fieldbot Field using autonomous crop protection enabled by UltraFast™ Chemigation with a Control Field using conventional agrochemical spraying across two nearly identical 120-acre fields of PepsiCo–Frito-Lay variety chipping potatoes, with each crop receiving ten scheduled and unscheduled crop protection product applications—including herbicides, insecticides, and fungicides—throughout the entire growing season.
Control Field:
Standard start-stop move irrigation pivot using a separate, conventional agrochemical spraying method requiring a full-time equipment operator, resulting in the following yield and quality outcomes:
Yield: 562 CWT (hundredweight) per acre average
Quality: 16.6 total solids average
Fieldbot Field:
Successfully applied 100% of all scheduled and unscheduled chemical and biological irrigation-labeled crop protection products using an all-electric, autonomous, upgraded irrigation pivot already deployed and operating in the field, resulting in the following yield and quality outcomes:
Yield: 679 CWT (hundredweight) per acre average
Quality: 17.1 total solids average
The Fieldbot Field achieved a 20.8% increase in yield and a 3.0% improvement in crop quality compared with the Control Field—while also recording the highest yield of any field on the entire farm.
The net dollar gain from increased yield, before accounting for any Fieldbot-related cost savings from lower labor costs, reduced equipment costs, and reduced agrochemical use, is calculated as follows:
(679 CWT per acre x 120 acres x $11.00 per CWT) – (562 CWT per acre x 120 acres x $11.00 per CWT) = $154,440 gain in yield with the Fieldbot Field in the first year, or $1,287 per acre, demonstrating the potential for Fieldbot to generate an exceptionally compelling ROI for the customer.