Duets: Small grower automation and robotics from a young, fresh perspective
My guest for this column is Maximilian Knight, CEO of Rooted Robotics based in Boulder, Colorado. Max earned an environmental engineering degree from the University of Colorado in 2017. Following graduation, he started an environmental control systems company focused on hardware and software products that address automation challenges of irrigation and air management in hydroponic systems and small greenhouses.
Peter: Max, your career path exceeds a simple introductory paragraph. As a young, new contributor to the horticulture industry, please share more of your adventure.
Max: I’m originally from Brooklyn, New York, and despite growing up in a big city, I have always been fascinated with the natural world and agriculture. In high school as I was learning about the various impacts of climate change, I read about the concept of vertical farming and became obsessed. My high school had a small greenhouse that included a hydroponic system where I learned about the theory and practice of these systems. I did my senior project on vertical farming and was lucky enough to interview Dickson Despommier, a Columbia University professor who wrote “The Vertical Farm: Feeding the World in the 21st Century.” My fascination with sustainability and green technology led me to work in the renewable energy industry in Germany for a year before starting my degree at University of Colorado at Boulder.
Peter: It’s refreshing to see individuals who did not grow up in horticulture choose it as a career. Your experience in Germany was a valuable step along your path. Where did your work in that sector lead you next?
Max: While working on environmental control systems, I started periodically checking back in on the vertical farming industry. I read about various farms raising hundreds of millions of dollars in venture capital but saw few results. From my lay perspective, I thought it was strange that these companies, in most cases, didn’t have more than a few farms to speak of, despite the scale of funding.
As I dug deeper into their operations, I realized that many of the farms struggled with labor problems. Also, the cost of the automation that they did have, in some cases, seemed astronomical considering their business model revolved around selling low-margin perishable products.
In 2021, these ideas came to a head and I decided to start my own vertical farm. We would automate much more of the process but, most importantly, we would do it more affordably than anyone else. By that time, my team and I had become skilled at building hardware and control systems, and the jump to machines and robotics didn’t seem daunting.
Peter: If you didn’t tell me you were an engineer, I’d have guessed. Your choice of the descriptor “daunting” is perfect, and along the way you caught the entrepreneur bug. What was your inspiration behind Rooted Robotics?
Max: Before actually building a farm, we spent the first few years developing various robotic systems and automation processes on a shoestring budget. In 2023, we finally built our farm and started selling produce locally in Colorado.
Despite moderate success, as we continued to network in the industry, we met other farmers and growers who would ask about our own machines and if we would sell them. After making the realization that we could help the industry far more by helping other farmers, we closed the farm to focus entirely on the machines and robotic systems.
Peter: That commercial growing experience is a key piece of your story, Max. Be a grower, understand a grower. Not everyone is willing to pay those dues. Tell us about the categories of technology/robotics that are your priorities.
Max: Our focus is on the biggest pain points that our customers are facing. With regard to microgreens, which is our initial focus, we’re working on solutions for three primary areas: seeding, harvesting and tray or NFT channel cleaning, with a specific emphasis on microgreens grown in 1020 trays.
Peter: I like the focus on small operations, standard 1020 configuration and nutrient film channel systems. Much of my own research focus has been in these areas.
Max: Our machines, compared to many competitive products, are 50% to 80% lower cost, which opens up a whole new market of growers who previously couldn’t afford any real automation. Our tabletop microgreens seeder reduces not only the time spent planting seeds but also the level of training required to complete the task. The biggest benefit of this machine is that it improves and maintains yields through consistent seed distribution that reduces crowding and plant disease.
Our leafy greens harvester cuts the time to harvest a tray of microgreens from about a minute to roughly 3 seconds. Our tray washing systems similarly reduce the time to wash each tray down to roughly 5 seconds. Longer-term, we aim to build a whole line of products that allows each machine to be daisy-chained together to automate the entire front and back end of the microgreens growing process.
On the front end, this would involve a tray dispensing machine, a flat filling machine, the seeding machine that we already have and a watering system that we will roll out soon. On the back end, the process will start with the harvester, followed by a machine to receive spent trays, dump the media and then hand off the empty tray to our tray washing machine, which will sanitize, dry and stack the trays. We realize that many farms may not need this level of automation, so each machine will also work independently, allowing growers to upgrade to whichever level fits their business. We call this a la carte automation. These tools integrate seamlessly into existing workflows, offering growers solutions that are both efficient and affordable.
Peter: All of that is exciting, and growers can watch for Rooted Robotics in conference trade shows to see these products in person. Finally, what do you see in CEA’s future?
Max: I believe the future of CEA will shift depending on the unit economics of various types of crops, which boil down mostly to labor, energy and inputs. Labor is the most feasible one to reduce, and consistent labor is becoming harder to come by — a trend that is likely to worsen. The need for automation has very little to do with eliminating jobs in most cases, but rather with simply keeping up with a farm’s workload.
On a more macro level, we think that as climate shifts, certain crops will become unreliable to grow outdoors, which will create a market for those crops in CEA settings. I think we will see traditional farms investing more in greenhouse production to hedge their bets and enable year-round production.
Automation will still play a significant role in making farms more efficient and sustainable, while modular farm designs and energy-efficient innovations will help make CEA more accessible to growers worldwide.
Peter: I share your high-level view of agriculture’s future and also believe climate, labor, energy and economics are moving the goalposts on the playing field. Crop strategies that aren’t economically feasible today may make sense as the landscape continues to shift.
Many agree that farming will continue integrating outdoor and indoor production systems. Actually, this isn’t a new concept, just a modern-day push forward. My parents learned that building a small greenhouse on our farm allowed them to economically produce their own young plants for the fields, often of higher quality than they could purchase. Their parents’ greenhouses were naturally ventilated with hand-operated ridge and side vents. Low and behold, today’s high-tech greenhouses have returned to natural ventilation, this time completely automated. That historical detail is for the engineer in you, Max. Thanks again for sharing with me.
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