GUSS vs Prospr
Two spraying machines, one verified table. Every figure below is sourced and dated; vendor claims are labelled and kept apart from independent results.
California-built (Kingsburg) autonomous sprayer for orchards and vineyards, now a wholly owned John Deere subsidiary after an August 2025 acquisition that followed a three-year joint venture. GUSS navigates rows itself on GPS + LiDAR with no driver on board, but GUSS/Deere describe this as "supervised" autonomy — one operator monitors and can remotely intervene on up to 8 machines at once from a laptop. The line spans base GUSS (600-gal tank, diesel), Mini GUSS (smaller footprint for vineyards/high-density orchards/berries), Herbicide GUSS (sensor-triggered spot-spray weed control) and a 2024 fully electric option; sold and serviced only through John Deere dealers in the US and Australia, with 250+ units deployed globally as of the 2025 acquisition.
Best for: Large commercial orchard, vineyard and berry operations in the US or Australia (almonds, walnuts, pistachios, citrus, stone fruit, wine grapes) wanting to shrink a multi-tractor spray crew — GUSS's own case study shows a conventional 8-worker, 6-tractor medium-scale crew dropping to 2 workers and 4 GUSS units.New Zealand-engineered autonomous spraying vehicle for orchards and vineyards, built by Robotics Plus (Tauranga, NZ) and sold/supported today through Yamaha Agriculture, formed when Yamaha Motor completed its acquisition of Robotics Plus in 2025. A hybrid diesel-electric drivetrain (Tier 4 generator + battery pack + independent wheel motors) drives RTK-GPS-guided autonomous spraying with quick-swap Q Series (foliar) and H Series (under-canopy herbicide) sprayers. Commercially deployed in the US, Australia and New Zealand; a published case study (Treasury Wine Estates, NZ) shows two units covering 300 ha of vineyard across eight 15-hour operating days.
Best for: Larger commercial orchard or vineyard operations in the US, Australia or New Zealand — the Treasury Wine Estates case study (two units, 300 ha, NZD 115,000/year net savings after subscription costs) shows the economics working at estate scale, backed by a real Yamaha Agriculture / Croplands / Burrows Tractor dealer network.| GUSS Verified 2026-07-18 | Prospr Verified 2026-07-19 | |
|---|---|---|
| Overview | ||
| Task | Spraying | Spraying |
| Autonomy | Fully autonomous | Fully autonomous |
| Country of origin | United States | New Zealand |
| Availability | Available now | Available now |
| EU market | Pending | Pending |
| Lead time | Not disclosed | Not disclosed |
| Last verified | 2026-07-18 | 2026-07-19 |
| Specifications | ||
| Power source | Diesel — John Deere 4.5L 173 hp Stage V engine (Tier 3 available for export); Herbicide GUSS uses a 4.5L 74 hp Stage V engine (no DEF); a fully electric variant (Electric GUSS, John Deere KREISEL batteries) launched 2024 | Hybrid diesel-electric — Tier 4 diesel generator + regenerative braking + high-capacity battery pack, powering independent electric drive motors at each wheel |
| Required tractor power | Not applicable — self-propelled 4WD/4-wheel-steer platform, not a tractor implement | Not required (self-propelled) — hybrid diesel-electric drivetrain, ~50 kW drive output |
| Dimensions | GUSS: 24 ft long x 6 ft 4 in tall x 8 ft 3 in wide (standard tires; 7 ft 6 in narrow / 8 ft 4 in low-impact options). Herbicide GUSS: 23 ft 6 in long x 6 ft 4 in tall x 8 ft 4 in transport width, 15-19 ft adjustable spray width | 5,240 x 1,950 x 3,600 mm (206 x 77 x 141 in, L x W x H); minimum row spacing 1.85 m (6.07 ft); minimum headland 7.1 m (23 ft), spot-turns around the rear axle |
| Weight | GUSS: 11,660 lb empty. Herbicide GUSS: 12,460 lb empty (manufacturer brochure) | 2,000 kg / 4,409 lb (unladen, without payload) |
| Min farm size | Not disclosed as a number; manufacturer brochure markets GUSS at small, medium and large operation scales (its own "small scale" case study is still a professional commercial grower, not a hobby farm) | Not disclosed |
| Productivity | 90-gallon fuel cell gives approximately 13-14 hour run time; one operator can monitor/supervise up to 8 GUSS machines at once; manufacturer case study cites refill downtime cut from a typical 45 minutes to about 3 minutes | 300 ha (740 ac) covered by two units across eight 15-hour operating days in the Treasury Wine Estates case study — about 1.3 ha/hr (3.2 ac/hr) per unit, up from 1 ha/hr (2.4 ac/hr) with a conventional tractor-mounted sprayer |
| Max speed | Not disclosed | Not disclosed |
| Sensors | GPS + LiDAR for autonomous row navigation; user interface flags position/spray-rate/mobility faults with automatic visual and audible alerts; Herbicide GUSS adds multiple onboard weed-detection sensors for spot-spraying | RTK GPS precision navigation; LiDAR + camera sensor fusion for obstacle detection and collision avoidance |
| Price & model | ||
| Price (EUR) | Not disclosed | Not disclosed |
| Native price | Not disclosed | Not disclosed |
| Business model | Buy, sold and serviced exclusively through John Deere dealers in the US and Australia; Herbicide GUSS is also offered as a pay-for-service option alongside outright purchase. No unit price published. | Contact-sales / subscription-inclusive model — Yamaha Agriculture's own case study nets savings "after subscription costs" but no purchase price or subscription terms are published; sold direct and through the Yamaha Agriculture / Croplands (AU, NZ) / Burrows Tractor (US) dealer network. |
| Ongoing cost | Diesel fuel, tires, spray consumables (nozzles, pump wear parts) and scheduled maintenance through the John Deere dealer network; costs not published | Subscription-style cost referenced in published case studies but exact terms not disclosed; parts and preventative-maintenance kits supplied through the dealer network. |
| Key outcome | ||
| Best verified result | Spray-crew labour and equipment at medium scale 8 workers to 2 workers (75% fewer); 12 pieces of towed/tractor equipment to 4 GUSS units · vendor | Vineyard spraying work rate +34% · vendor |
| EU context | ||
| CE marking | Not disclosed — no CE-marking evidence found; confirmed commercial deployment is US and Australia only | Not confirmed — no CE-marking evidence found; the product is not marketed or sold in the EU (deployment is US, Australia and New Zealand only) |
| Machinery Regulation | Not applicable — no evidence GUSS has been placed on the EU market | Not applicable — no EU market presence found; would fall under Regulation (EU) 2023/1230 autonomous-machine provisions if ever placed on the EU market |
| CAP subsidy | Not applicable — no EU/CAP-linked deployment found; case-study savings above relate to US/Australia operations | Not applicable — outside the EU, no CAP relevance; sold in the US, Australia and New Zealand only |
"—" means the manufacturer has not disclosed the figure; we never estimate silently. Model either machine's payback with your own numbers on its ROI calculator page.