Triangle Farms is a 10,000-acre conventional and organic specialty crop farm based in Salinas, Calif. It is part of the JVSmith Company, which has a total of 40,000 acres across farms throughout California, Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico and Mexico.
Prior to the LaserWeeder, Triangle Farms relied on H-2A labor provided by a labor contractor for hand weeding. They were leveraging a substantial number of people to hand weed and certain crops, like their organic baby leaf and carrots, needed to be weeded multiple times. This resulted in very high hand-weeding costs, ranging from $500 to $1,800 per acre, depending on the crop (see Table 5). With labor availability and costs going up 7-15% year-over-year, Triangle Farms was seeking any possible solution. JVSmith purchased two LaserWeeders to run on their organic carrots, onions, spinach, salanova oakleaf lettuce, arugula, and direct-seeded romaine lettuce acres for farms in California, Colorado and Arizona. For this case study, the ROI analysis was conducted only on the acres in the Salinas Valley, where the LaserWeeder was used February through September. In those eight months, Triangle Farms not only reduced their weeding expenses with the LaserWeeder, but they also improved yield and reduced their weed seedbank.
LASER WEEDING BY THE NUMBERS: COSTS AND SAVINGS
trained, along with a supervisor. Taking these costs along with fuel, hardware and Over-The-Air (OTA) service plans, and logistical operations (see Table 6), comes to a total cost of $448.73 per acre to operate the LaserWeeder. Triangle Farms is able to cover approximately 0.7 acres per hour with the LaserWeeder, running an average of 18 hours of coverage per day, 6 days a week. • Running the LaserWeeder reduced Triangle Farms’ contracted H-2A hand-weeding costs to $135 per acre on organic spinach and $120 on organic salanova oakleaf lettuce, for a per-acre savings of $416.27 and $1,231.27, respectively. They did not need any additional hand weeding completed on organic arugula after running the LaserWeeder while
• Triangle Farms looked at how one LaserWeeder impacted their weeding costs and savings for 1,108 acres of organic spinach, salanova oakleaf lettuce, arugula, and direct-seeded romaine lettuce • The annual cost of running a LaserWeeder over 1,108 acres on a 5-year depreciation schedule averages out to $216.61. Triangle Farms leases the John Deere tractor used to run the implement for $2,500 a month, for a per-acre expense of $27.07. Triangle Farms also runs a 3-person crew for the LaserWeeder: two operators, which are H-2A labor they’ve
“ You’re not only buying the equipment, you’re buying the experience, you’re buying the support. ” — Josh Roberts, Triangle Farms, Former President
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