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Reservoir Farms, un reconocido banco de pruebas para startups que buscan automatizar tareas en granjas de California, se expande al Pacífico Noroeste.
En la demostración de tecnología agrícola FIRA USA el martes en Yakima, Washington, la empresa anunció que está lanzando una nueva comunidad técnica en la granja para IA física robusta, orientada a los más de 3 mil millones de dólares en cultivos de alto valor del Valle de Yakima.
Se abrirá la próxima primavera. Reservoir Farms – Washington se está desarrollando en el Prosser Irrigated Agriculture Research and Extension Center de la Universidad Estatal de Washington, con la ayuda de la Washington Tree Fruit Research Commission, el Tri-City Development Council, el Consejo Norteamericano de Arándanos y otros grupos.
The farm, which will enable tech companies to test their robotics and other innovations on actual commercial crops, will be Reservoir’s second expansion outside California following a Yuma, Arizona, pilot collaboration with Arizona State University.
“This is definitely a strategic choice, a strategic location for an extension of what Reservoir Farms already has been doing,” she said, noting that Yakima Valley’s tree fruit, blueberries, hops and winegrapes are labor intensive and need automated solutions. “There’s not a whole lot of hops in California, so we’re really looking forward to getting more acquainted with that industry.”
FIRA USA kickoff
Reservoir’s announcement helped kick off the fifth annual FIRA USA event, which is being held at the Yakima Fairgrounds and working farms across the Yakima Valley.
The event will run through Thursday, bringing together more than 2,500 growers, technology developers, researchers, investors and other agricultural leaders to see first-of-its-kind technology and discuss what it could mean for Pacific Northwest farmers. Registration is free for growers.
The event features more than 80 ag-tech companies showing autonomous tractors, drones, precision spray-harvest equipment and other innovations in the fairgrounds’ expo hall and demonstration zones.
Reservoir launched its initial 40-acre testing hub in California’s Salinas Valley conceptually in 2024 and held its grand opening in March. The site is designed as a working farm and ag-tech incubator where companies can test robots, automation and data tools directly in commercial crops.
Danny Bernstein, a former Google executive who is Reservoir’s founder and CEO, has said the project is an effort to “accelerate innovation in spaces that really need it,” particularly specialty crop agriculture.
Difficult to automate
The project is targeting crops that are among the most difficult to automate. In the Yakima Valley, testing will start with tree fruit and blueberries, then expand to winegrapes and hops, with row crops later, Goldston said.
Startups are already in line. Bonsai Robotics, Skysense, Cordon and Rootline Robotics will join the Washington site as members.
“Technology is strategic to the future of Washington agriculture,” Bernstein said in a statement. “Tree fruit, blueberries, wine grapes and hops are some of the hardest crops in the world to automate, and labor is now the biggest cost Washington growers face.”
“Expanding into the Pacific Northwest shows the Reservoir model is working,” he said. «When you put builders on real farms with growers who will tell them the truth, rugged physical AI goes from prototype to production must faster.”
Washington is the nation’s leading producer of apples, pears and sweet cherries, according to the USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service. In 2025 the state grew about two-thirds of U.S. commercial apples, a crop valued at nearly $1.9 billion, along with about 70% of the nation’s sweet cherries and 44% of its pears.
Washington also led the country in cultivated blueberries, producing 192.4 million pounds, about a quarter of the U.S. crop.
Casi todos los desafíos
Reservoir officials say blueberries combine nearly every challenge their startups work on: a labor-intensive harvest that is hard to mechanize without damaging fruit, and constant disease and pest pressure.
“Es muy diferente de lo que hacemos en California,” Birdsong said. “Aunque hay similitudes, es realmente importante estar allí para las pruebas en las condiciones climáticas y del suelo. Todos nuestros agricultores están lidiando ahora mismo con la mano de obra, así que asegurarnos de que la tecnología funcione es realmente importante.”
La mano de obra representa hasta el 57% de los costos variables de los huertos de manzanas de Washington, según WSU. Las posiciones de trabajadores invitados H-2A certificadas en Washington casi se duplicaron entre 2017 y 2025, a más de 34,500, informó el Departamento de Trabajo de EE. UU. Durante un período similar, el número de granjas de Washington con huertos cayó un 12%, según el Censo de Agricultura del USDA.
“Nuestros cultivadores están gastando más en insumos cada temporada, y no adoptarán tecnología que no haya sido desarrollada o probada localmente,” dijo Inés Hanrahan, directora ejecutiva de la Washington Tree Fruit Research Commission. “Una máquina que no haya pasado por una temporada de cultivo en Washington no está preparada para una. Construir aquí, con los agricultores involucrados desde el primer día, es la forma en que haremos que nuestra industria esté lista para robots, y que los robots estén listos para nuestra industria.”
