Reservoir, Washington State University’s Prosser Irrigated Agriculture Research and Extension Center (IAREC), the Washington Tree Fruit Research Commission (WTFRC), and the Tri-City Development Council (TRIDEC) today announced a new agricultural robotics incubator for Washington growers.
The site will put agricultural robotics startups to work in the state’s orchards, vineyards and berry fields alongside researchers and growers.
The announcement comes as Washington growers face rising labor costs and a shrinking workforce for some of the hardest crops in the world to automate. These include apples, cherries, pears, blueberries, wine grapes, and hops.
Reservoir is an agricultural innovation center and venture capital fund. The organization is focused on helping agtech startups succeed where agriculture happens, in the field.
Reservoir started its innovation center in the Salinas Valley. It hopes to expand to other key regions across California and the American West. Reservoir VC backs startups solving real problems in high-value crops and the rugged physical AI stack.
More about Reservoir’s innovation center
Earlier this year, the company officially opened Reservoir Farms – Salinas, its flagship on-farm innovation hub for specialty crops. The new site features multiple innovation barns and 24 acres of dedicated commercial test fields. This creates the most concentrated ecosystem of technology leaders, growers, and startups anywhere in agriculture to rapidly scale solutions for global food production challenges.
More than 300 growers, agricultural leaders, federal and state officials, community partners, investors and media attended the grand opening of Salinas site.
“From our early days, Reservoir listened intently to partners to understand where innovation in agriculture was stuck,” said Danny Bernstein, founder and CEO of Reservoir. “Once our vision to create an on-farm innovation center was clear, we worked relentlessly with partners across the industry to bring the energy, focus and skills necessary to manifest the space and people necessary to make this a reality. With the doors open, the focus turns to execution and impact – in the form of real-world solutions for growers, upskilled jobs for rural communities, and a more secure food supply for American consumers.”
Last summer, Reservoir announced plans to expand its on-farm innovation center model across California, Arizona, and other major growing regions. Each hub will be anchored by leading academic and research and developmnt institutions.
As part of this multi-region strategy, Reservoir invited startups to run pilots over the winter months at the University of Arizona’s Yuma Agricultural Center. The startups gained the opportunity to test technologies in commercial desert vegetable production.
In August, Reservoir announced a $10 million, three-year R&D partnership with John Deere. The partnership aims to accelerate real-world development and commercialization of rugged AI technologies for high-value crop agriculture. It builds on a relationship that began when Reservoir was founded in 2024.
Deere said the partnership with Reservoir reflects its “commitment to an innovation ecosystem that moves faster from prototype to grower impact.”
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