“Nothing is in the field more than the pivot, and yet most of them tell you very little, if anything at all, about the crop,” says Daniel Jenkins, vice president of sales for Autonomous Pivot.
Autonomous Pivot’s technology uses cameras and ground penetrating radar to collect soil-moisture data, crop imagery, rainfall, pressure, GPS location, and irrigation activity to help growers make better irrigation and crop-management decisions. The company sees centre pivots, traditionally used exclusively for irrigation and fertigation, as underutilized pieces of equipment that are in the field more than any producer or agrologist. It aims to convert the centre pivot into its own reporting scout in the field.
Autonomous Pivot installed its technology at EMILI’s Innovation Farms MacGregor site during the 2026 season. EMILI is validating the technology’s insights about field conditions, irrigation optimization, and pest and disease alerts.
“Development is a tenuous process because you’re asking a grower who has never seen what they need to imagine it or envision it, and we’re trying to build things that are useful. Being able to partner with entities like EMILI that facilitate exposure to the technology, that’s been something that has definitely stood out,” said Jenkins.
“Every university has a startup incubator…but what I really appreciate about EMILI is they’re taking the other side of that and saying, ‘Hey farmers, there are tons of technologies that could be useful to you, and it can be very challenging to look at the sea of options and choose something that’s going to benefit you. We can do that with you – we can take our best and brightest and put them on your team and have you look at this technology critically, and see where it provides value.’ And that’s where getting the technology in front of growers, having them there to use it, look at it, learn from it and analyze it, has been beneficial.”
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