FEATURE STORY FROM ONE ACRE TO 200 FARMS How Lumo Is Redefining Smart Irrigation By Michelle Rivera, Senior Communications Manager
Team Lumo
When Lumo Founder Devon Wright walked onto the AgSharks® pitch stage at the 99th Western Growers Annual Meeting, he never would have guessed he was moments away from winning the 2025 Audience Choice Award. He certainly didn’t feel like a winner. In fact, he actually felt terrible. “I was sick that day,” Wright said with a laugh. “I woke up late. I took a bunch of medicine and thought everyone could tell. I was just ready to get out of there.” He even voted for another contestant. But Lumo resonated with growers, and that resonance traces back to how the company began: not with venture capital decks or theoretical tech solutions, but with a small patch of land in Northern California and one frustrated grower—Wright himself—trying to keep everything afloat with proper irrigation.
One Small Farm, One Big Problem Lumo’s story starts in 2017, when Canadian-born Wright bought less than an acre of land in Northern California and planted his first orchard of apples, pears, peaches, berries and citrus, all organized in several distinct irrigation zones. “Even on that tiny piece of land, I realized just how hard irrigation really is,” Wright said. Each crop needed dramatically different amounts of water. Citrus would fail if irrigated like apples. Apples would suffer if watered like citrus. A single misstep, like the day he unknowingly ran over a line with his tractor, could drain tanks, flood soil or jeopardize crop health.
37 Western Grower & Shipper | www.wga.com January – March 2026
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