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CapitalPress.com
April 17, 2015
Fruit farm embraces cutting-edge technology
By DENISE RUTTAN
For the Capital Press
Denise Rutan/For the Capital Press
A custom-built GPS-enabled tractor allows Olson Farms to spray more efficiently and use fewer
chemicals.
LinkedIn profile.
Asked to describe his farm
in a few words, he says it’s
“Dynamic. We’re very inno-
vative.”
For example, he designed
and built a mobile chemi-
cal injector powered by so-
lar panels. He also designed
and installed solar systems to
power an irrigation controller.
Furthermore, his farm uses
a GPS-enabled tractor cus-
tom-built for the smaller rows
between fruit trees. The GPS
allows him to design a map
of which trees need spraying
at which times, allowing him
to use fewer chemicals more
effectively.
But it’s not only technol-
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All this information,
though, has created new com-
plications.
“The biggest issue in farm-
ing right now is dealing with
all these reports you get from
all these resources,” Olson
said.
It can be a case of data
overload. So Olson is devel-
oping a database that will act
as an umbrella for all the data
the farm generates.
“The goal is to help our
farm become more efficient,”
Olson said.
Name a trend, such as big
data in agriculture, and Ol-
son knows it. He’s considered
drones before, for example,
but the farm doesn’t yet have
any. He is waiting to see how
this green industry shapes up
before making an investment.
Regardless, he’s always look-
ing to the future.
“My personal feeling is
that farmers who make the
best use of technology are
going to do well in the future,
but guys who stick to the old
ways are going to struggle,”
Olson said. “Over the years
I’ve seen technology save us
money and made farming eas-
ier.”
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Cutting-edge technology
and agriculture may at first
seem like strange bedfellows.
On one hand, you have
a centuries-old tradition of
growing food and other crops.
On the other hand, you have
drones, “smart” wireless sys-
tems and powerful computer
chips. Yet more and more,
these two worlds are merging.
Darin Olson and his family
reflect that growing trend. The
Olsons are the fourth genera-
tion to own 180 acres of Ol-
son Farms Inc., southeast of
Salem, Ore., in the Willamette
Valley. They raise peaches,
cherries, holly, ornamental
almonds, apples, blueberries
and nectarines. And they’re
keen on modernizing the old
ways.
Darin Olson is always
coming up with new projects
to do just that. At 39, he is
the picture of a new wave of
young farmers eager to em-
brace such changes. As a case
in point, he calls himself an
irrigation specialist instead
of a farm owner on his online
ogy that inspires his creative
thinking.
Using Olson’s contacts in
the holly industry, he got the
idea to sell blooming branch-
es. Fashioning the flower-
ing cuttings from fruit trees
into decorative displays has
become stylish on the East
Coast.
“We sell them to stores
across the country,” Olson
said. “There’s a lot of cross-
over with holly. Otherwise the
flower industry is very hard to
get into.”
But it’s computers that re-
ally get Olson fired up. His
entire irrigation system is
the farm’s showpiece. This
cloud-based system means
Olson can simply look at his
smart phone or web browser
for real-time data on how his
irrigation system is doing. In
the past he had to physically
send people out to inspect
every inch of the line, and
he still might not know the
exact location of each leak.
Now, he receives a text mes-
sage on his phone saying, es-
sentially, “I’m broken, come
fix me.”
“I always know exactly
what’s going on and the sys-
tem does a very good job,”
Olson said. “It’s a very pow-