The Strawberry Test: Robots Finally Reach the Field in 2026

If you want to know whether farm robots are ready, watch the strawberry. It hides under leaves, bruises if you look at it too hard, and ripens on its own stubborn schedule. California grows more than 90% of America's strawberries, and picking them is some of the most labour-intensive work in agriculture. For years that made the crop a graveyard for robotics startups. In 2026, that is finally starting to change.

From demo to real fields

DailyRobotics is preparing a commercial launch in California, with its first machines reportedly going to a customer's fields from April 2026. Its Q2 harvester uses two robotic arms and soft grippers to lift each berry and drop it straight into a clamshell, grading quality on board as it goes. The company reports field performance around 30 kilograms per hour, with the hardware already capable of 50, and says a single operator can supervise up to eight battery-powered robots at once. It claims a picking pace two to three times faster than a human.

It is not alone. Advanced.farm and Harvest CROO Robotics have been refining strawberry platforms for years, and in 2025 Tortuga AgTech, whose picking robots reached Time's best-inventions list, sold its technology and engineering team to vertical-farming company Oishii. Tortuga reported squads of robots harvesting with 98% accuracy under a single human supervisor.

A reality check worth keeping

The temptation is to declare the labour problem solved. It is not. Independent reporting suggests harvesting robots still trail skilled human crews on raw speed for most crops, managing roughly four to eight flats an hour against a person's eight to twelve. What the machines offer instead is endurance: they run close to twenty hours a day, do not need housing or breaks, and never call in sick during a heatwave. In an industry facing chronic labour shortages, that math is starting to work even when the robot is slower per hour.

The strawberry test matters because it is honest. A robot that can handle the softest, most awkward fruit on the shelf can eventually handle almost anything. 2026 will not be the year robots replace pickers. It looks more like the year they finally earn a permanent spot in the field alongside them, one clamshell at a time.