Best Robots for Citrus Groves
Citrus farming faces significant labor challenges for harvesting, spraying, and grove maintenance. Agricultural robots are being developed to automate citrus picking using specialized grippers, while autonomous sprayers and drones handle pest and disease management. Precision scouting robots detect citrus greening disease early, helping growers manage this devastating threat.
Citrus groves generate $3,000–$8,000/acre annually. Precision drone spraying reduces fungicide and insecticide costs by 30–40% — on a 500-acre citrus operation, that saves $15,000–$40,000 per season. Early detection of citrus greening (HLB) via drone imaging avoids losses that otherwise average $1,500–$3,000 per infected acre.
Quick answers:
- •Can robots detect citrus greening disease? — Yes, drones and ground robots equipped with multispectral and hyperspectral cameras can detect citrus greening (HLB) symptoms in trees before they're visible to the human eye, enabling early removal or treatment to slow disease spread..
- •What robots spray citrus groves? — Agricultural spray drones and autonomous ground sprayers apply pesticides and nutrients to citrus groves. The DJI Agras T25 is designed for orchard spraying and navigates between citrus trees with obstacle avoidance..
Citrus farming faces significant labor challenges for harvesting, spraying, and grove maintenance. Agricultural robots are being developed to automate citrus picking using specialized grippers, while autonomous sprayers and drones handle pest and disease management.
- ↓Reduce farm labor by 52% on average
- ↓Cut chemical use by 29%
- ✓Typical payback period of 9 months
- ✓6 verified solutions in our directory
6 Robots Found
| Robot | Price Range | Action |
|---|---|---|
| DJI Agras T50 | $17K-$25K | View → |
| DJI Agras T40 | $15K-$25K | View → |
| DJI Agras T70P | $20K-$28K | View → |
| Burro Grande | $30K-$50K | View → |
| XAG V40 Agricultural Drone | $8K-$15K | View → |
| DJI Agras T25 | $10K-$18K | View → |
DJI Agras T50
The DJI Agras T50 is DJI's flagship professional agricultural drone, balancing a 40-litre spray tank and 50 kg spread payload in a compact coaxial twin-rotor airframe. Phased-array radar works alongside binocular vision cameras to detect and avoid obstacles in real time, making autonomous field operations safe even near tree lines, power lines, and other hazards. Coverage reaches 20+ hectares per hour in spraying mode, making it one of the fastest agricultural drones available. The T50 supports both liquid spraying and solid spreading (fertiliser, seeds), so a single platform handles multiple seasonal tasks. DJI's fleet management system allows operators to coordinate multiple drones simultaneously, with live telemetry and mission planning from a mobile app. An active dealer and used-market ecosystem means buyers can often source units immediately, and dealer-certified service networks are available in most major agricultural regions.
$17K-$25K
DJI Agras T40
The DJI Agras T40 is a professional-grade agricultural drone with an industry-leading 40 kg spray payload and 50 kg spread payload, making it one of the most capable crop spraying drones on the market. It features dual atomized spraying systems and a coaxial twin-rotor design that generates a powerful downdraft for even chemical distribution across crop canopies. The T40's terrain-following radar automatically adjusts altitude over hills and uneven terrain, ensuring consistent spray coverage even in challenging topography. With intelligent route planning and swarm operation support, multiple T40 drones can work together to cover up to 53 acres per hour in spraying mode. Widely adopted across rice paddies in Asia, cotton fields in the Americas, and fruit orchards worldwide, it has become the go-to drone for large-scale precision agriculture.
$15K-$25K
DJI Agras T70P
The DJI Agras T70P bridges the gap between the T50 and the T100, offering a mid-range payload capacity suited to medium-to-large farming operations where the T50's payload is insufficient but the full scale of the T100 is not required. It shares the Agras platform's core strengths — intelligent obstacle avoidance, terrain-following radar, and compatibility with DJI's fleet management system — while delivering a payload step-up over the T50 at a price point below the T100. The T70P is aimed at operators running 500–2,000 ha seasons who want to reduce field-stop frequency. Pricing is estimated; buyers should contact DJI authorised dealers for current availability and quotes.
$20K-$28K
Burro Grande
The Burro Grande is an autonomous mobile robot designed to follow farm workers through fields, hauling harvested produce without any human driving. Using LIDAR and visual sensors, it autonomously follows pickers through crop rows, learns the farm layout over time, and returns loaded bins to collection points. With a 500 lb payload capacity and all-terrain capability, it eliminates the need for manual cart pushing that causes worker fatigue and injury. The Burro operates in diverse crops including table grapes, citrus, nursery plants, and berries across hundreds of commercial farms in the United States.
$30K-$50K
XAG V40 Agricultural Drone
The XAG V40 is a next-generation agricultural drone combining both spraying and surveying capabilities in a single compact platform. With a 20-liter spray tank and integrated multispectral camera, it can scout fields for crop health issues and immediately treat problem areas in the same flight session. The drone features XAG's SuperX 4 Pro flight controller with terrain-following radar and centimeter-level RTK positioning. Its dual atomized spray system produces ultra-fine droplets for superior canopy penetration, particularly effective in dense crops like rice and fruit trees. Widely deployed across Southeast Asian rice-growing regions and African smallholder farms as part of XAG's mission to make precision agriculture accessible to farmers of all sizes.
$8K-$15K
DJI Agras T25
The DJI Agras T25 is a compact agricultural drone specifically designed for orchards, vineyards, and hilly terrain where larger drones cannot safely operate. With a 25 kg spray capacity and dual phased-array radar for advanced obstacle avoidance, it can navigate between tree canopies and along hillside contours with precision. The T25's smaller footprint makes it ideal for fragmented farmland and smaller operations that need professional-grade spraying capabilities at a lower price point. Its terrain-mapping system creates 3D models of orchards and hillsides to optimize spray routes and ensure complete coverage. Popular among tea plantation operators in Asia and vineyard managers in Europe, the T25 has proven especially effective in areas where ground-based spraying equipment cannot easily access.
$10K-$18K