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THE ASTORIAN • THuRSdAy, July 29, 2021
Farmer tests self-driving electric tractor
By SIERRA DAWN
McCLAIN
Capital Press
CLATSKANIE — Cali-
fornia-based Monarch Trac-
tor will begin field trials in
Oregon this year of its new
electric,
driver-optional
“smart” tractor.
Electric tractors are a
new frontier in U.S. agricul-
ture, so researchers, farm-
ers and Monarch Tractor
staff will be teaming up to
test the new vehicle across
California,
Washington
state and Oregon with U.S.
Department of Agriculture
Conservation Innovation
Grant funding.
The Oregon portion of
the pilot project will take
place at Hopville Farms,
with sites in Clatskanie and
Independence. Jim Hoff-
mann, farm owner, plans to
test the tractor on hundreds
of acres of blueberries.
Hoffmann estimated he
will decrease air pollution
on-site, reduce noise, save
about 1,500 gallons of die-
sel per year and, because
the tractor has a self-driv-
ing option, potentially
save thousands of hours of
employee labor.
“Like all farms, I’m con-
stantly looking at how to do
things better,” Hoffmann
said.
He plans to use the trac-
tor for many tasks, includ-
ing mowing between blue-
berry rows.
Hoffmann said he’s also
excited the tractor carries
multiple sensors and has
ports for more sensors so
Hoffmann can track data on
pest pressure, plant health
and productivity.
While moving through
fields, the electric tractor
can simultaneously collect
data from “root to fruit”
— from ground floor to
fruit level — said Scott
Fairbanks, an independent
researcher and computer
science expert at Oregon
State University.
In September, Fair-
banks plans to assign sev-
Conrad Gowell
Heat-stressed sockeye salmon were filmed in the Little
White Salmon River. These sick salmon are taking shelter
in the cooler waters of the Columbia River tributary.
Underwater video
shows impact on
salmon after heat wave
By COURTNEY
FLATT
Northwest News Network
Monarch Tractor
A Monarch electric self-driving tractor drives between rows of trees and sprays them.
Jim
Hoffmann
Praveen
Penmetsa
eral of his engineering stu-
dents to do capstone senior
projects related to this elec-
tric tractor’s data-collecting
capacities.
“I think what Monarch
has done is really power-
ful,” Fairbanks said. “It’ll
be almost like a gold rush:
for (Oregon State) students
to go in and figure out what
data is valuable.”
The e-tractor, accord-
ing to Monarch Trac-
tor co-founder and CEO
Praveen Penmetsa, can be
programmed once for a par-
ticular field and will then
know that route. The tractor
also uses an artificial intel-
ligence visual system to see
each field and relies on a
backup GPS system.
The tractor can be
recharged at any standard
220-volt outlet.
One of the downsides of
the e-tractor is that, com-
pared to a diesel tractor that
can quickly be refueled, the
e-tractor’s battery life is
expected to be only 6 to 10
hours.
Another obstacle to
adoption is the up-front
investment; the base price
for a Monarch self-driving
e-tractor is $58,000.
Long-term maintenance,
too, may present challenges.
If an e-tractor breaks down,
a farmer may need to call in
specialty repair experts who
understand software and
electrical engineering.
However,
Penmetsa
said Monarch anticipated
this challenge. Rather
than commingling tradi-
tional mechanical, electri-
cal and software systems,
Monarch kept each sys-
tem as separate as possible
so a farmer could repair a
basic mechanical problem
without needing a software
expert if a problem was
purely mechanical.
Despite these drawbacks,
Hoffmann said he thinks the
tractor will be well worth
the investment.
“There’s no question
that an electric tractor costs
more up-front and possibly
in repairs than a compara-
ble horsepower vehicle,”
he said. “But all the bene-
fits make it totally appeal-
ing from an economic
standpoint.”
This
summer’s
heat wave led to some
unhealthy hot water for
salmon. But, fish managers
said it hasn’t been as dev-
astating for salmon runs as
the warm water tempera-
tures were in 2015.
Underwater video from
a Columbia River tribu-
tary in south central Wash-
ington state shows sockeye
salmon infected with fun-
gus caused by heat stress.
They’re hiding out in the
cooler waters of the Lit-
tle White Salmon River,
far from their spawning
grounds.
After the heat wave,
water temperatures in
many parts of the Colum-
bia River rose beyond the
68-degree high that salmon
can stand. Above that, the
fish can potentially die.
In 2015, the heat and
low river flows caused
nearly 99% of the sock-
eye salmon to die before
they reached spawning
grounds. The heat wave
timing was fortunate for
sockeye runs, said Ritchie
Graves, Columbia Hydro-
power Branch chief with
NOAA Fisheries.
“A big chunk of sock-
eye had already migrated
past Bonneville Dam
(when the heat wave hit),”
Graves said.
So far, more than 580
salmon have made it past
the Snake River dams. As
of last week, Idaho Fish
and Game has collected
about 179 fish to transport
around the Lower Granite
Dam.
Those numbers sur-
passed fish managers’
fears, Graves said, when
they learned of the impend-
ing heat wave.
“It could have been a
lot worse. We’re fairly
pleased with how this has
turned out. Is it as good as
a kind of normal tempera-
ture year? No, clearly not,”
Graves said.
Rivers throughout the
Northwest
experienced
exceptionally high tem-
peratures during the heat
wave, he said, which can
harm salmon runs across
the region from the Salmon
to the Okanogan rivers.
Environmental groups
say the sick fish in this
recent underwater video
could be a glimpse into
the future as the climate
warms.
“We’re seeing sockeye
salmon dying because the
Columbia River is too hot,”
said Brett VandenHeuvel,
executive director with
Columbia
Riverkeeper.
“The sockeye dying this
way is heartbreaking.”