Lodi Growers Meet Mondavi and the Modern Marvel That Is the Monarch Tractor

It was hot in Lodi–104 degrees, to be precise–on Thursday in Victor, just north of Lodi, when the Lodi Winegrape Commission met to see the newfangled gadget Carlo Mondavi and his electric tractor colleagues are selling.

Lodi growers Jon Wetmore and Aaron Shinn of Round Valley Ranches hosted the event which brought more than 70 growers together to witness a truly modern marvel–the first, self-driving, electric tractor.

Douglas Kolker, Head of Growth at the Livermore-based Monarch Tractor company, gave the pitch. "Thank you all for coming. I'll just talk for a couple of minutes.

"Our tractor driver Zach is recording the route and then he'll just press a button and the tractor is going to run the same rows in the same path in the same manner autonomously by itself.

"That will be the highlight of the show, and the magic," he said. "So get ready for that–get excited."

Douglas Kolker, Head of Growth, Monarch Tractor, introduced the demo

"What we have found from all the farm owners that we've been speaking with when we've been doing this, bringing the tractor to farms for almost a year now–we've done dozens and dozens–that there are several reasons why the tractor is of interest."

"There are three main things that we bring to the party," he continued. "One–that it is electric. No diesel. And the cost of diesel, the messiness of it, the fumes, what it does to your crops–so that's eliminated. That's number one.

"Number two is that it's autonomous, driver optional. So your best driver records the route, hops off and the tractor runs it from then on–for as long as you want it to run in terms of months and years. And it will improve upon the route. It's actually better. 

"Anyone ever have a tractor run over a vine? That won't happen. Whatever the tractor driver recorded, every single time the tractor makes a pass on it, the tractor improves on the route. 

"And then the third piece, which you will see when the tractor comes to rest, and you can kick the tires and look at it, is that it has 12 cameras on it, so it provides real time data collection. So you can look for pests, moisture levels, anything and everything that you need to capture will be captured automatically by the cameras. You can look at it and analyze it on your phone and on your apps whenever you want. And the data belongs to you."

An onlooker watching the tractor in action

Just like ET, the tractor will phone home, Kolker said. "Unlike an electric car,  there's no range anxiety. The tractor will always come back to the charging station," he told the crowd.

A $500 deposit would lock in the current price, he added. "A 2 x 4 is $58,000 and the 4 by 4 is $68,000."

Many wineries in other regions have already ordered the tractors, and some–including Scheid Vineyards in Monterey County–have already applied for grants to offset the purchase price through California's Air Board FARMER program. 

"You turn in your old diesel tractor for one of those grants," said Mondavi.

It was his grandfather, Robert Mondavi, who famously grew up in Lodi, when his parents, Cesare and Rosa, moved the family of four from Hibbing, Minnesota to a house here, just 6 miles as the crow flies from Round Valley Ranches.

Cesare (standing) and Rosa (seated) with their children:
Mary,  Helen, Peter and Robert

"This is kind of a return to home for me for my family," Carlo said. "We're no longer farming here in Lodi, but we had been farming here since 1919."

Indeed, Robert Mondavi founded the nearby local powerhouse producer, Woodbridge in Acampo. (The winery is owned today by Constellation Brands.) Mondavi's mass market wines marked the market transition from old school jug wines to the modern varietals. That, of course, was in addition to putting Napa and its wine on the global stage.

The challenges of the 21st century are different from those days.

"For me, the Monarch tractor is the solution to a challenge called the Monarch Challenge, which is an effort to raise awareness" said Carlo. "Since the introduction of chemicals in farming, the population of butterflies and bees–due to climate change, migratory path disruption, and chemicals in farming–the Monarch population of butterflies have gone from 4.4 million individuals in the state of California down to 19,110. They're on the brink of extinction."

Carlo Mondavi (in black hat), Chief Farming Officer, Monarch Tractor, in Lodi

"So I started a challenge called the Monarch Challenge to try to create awareness. Because I'm a farmer. All my friends are farmers. Farmers are the most important people on earth, next to maybe doctors.  

"I realized that we weren't going to be able to solve this problem unless we could bridge the economic divide. There's a massive economic divide between multiple passes and fewer passes. That's just common sense. It's also a carbon footprint divide. 

"So if you can drive a Tesla or some of these autonomous vehicles, why can't you do that with a tractor? And so I partnered with a brilliant team and we formed Monarch Tractor."

"The crazy thing about this is it solves not just the carbon footprint issue that we deal with in farming, but it also solves the economic divide."

That footprint has big bottom line implications, he said.

"We're swapping in–in just one family's operations–about 150 tractors over the next five years. We're going to be saving them over $3 million per year. The carbon footprint savings is about 8,000 metric tons. 

"There's big big savings when you look at this from a financial standpoint, and that's what we need, as families, to continue farming and doing what we love."

Looking back on his own experience growing up as the son of Robert's son Tim Mondavi, Carlo said he was a mechanic's assistant from the age of seven until he was about 16, and he got some sage advice from the mechanic.

"He said, 'Carlo, you need to realize the most dangerous place on this farm is in a tractor seat.'" 

The Monarch solves that safety issue, he said.

"By being able to have your skilled operators get out of the tractor seat, and manage a fleet of tractors–versus being in a dangerous place, which is dirty and dangerous job–you're protecting your farm. You're also increasing your profitability. 

"And so that's one of the reasons why we know that this technology is needed–not just for all the challenges that we face on a planetary basis, but also on an economic basis."

The company says that the first tractors will ship in the fourth quarter of 2021, but most customers will get delivery for orders placed now in 2022 and 2023.

During the Q and A, growers asked about the right to repair, labor laws, charge times, horsepower and a variety of other questions.

Stephanie Bolton, the research and education director of the Lodi Winegrape Commission, 
got a chance to sit in the tractor

One questioned whether the company let farmers have the right to repair. 

"We are 'farmers first,'" said Mondavi. "You have the right to repair. The whole team is committed to 'farmer first.'"

Data is stored in the cloud and the farmer owns the rights to their data, the team said.

The discussion touched on labor laws and cost savings. "With the Monarch, there's no overtime," said one speaker."

"And no ten minute coffee breaks and no lunch breaks," an audience member chimed in.

The battery life depends on the amount of energy needed to do various tasks. "For mowing, the battery lasts about 10 to 12 hours," one speaker said. "Higher draw tasks take more energy so the time is less."

Apps are in development that will identify insect pests or count missing vines, and other tasks, the team said. 

At the end of the session, my phone shut down from excessive heat. But could a Monarch tractor keep going when a regular farmworker driver would faint from the heat? Probably it could.