Mini 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 orchard/vineyard sprayer — GUSS Automation's smaller sibling to the base Orchard GUSS, built roughly 25% smaller to fit high-density orchard and vineyard rows. Same driverless GPS+LiDAR row navigation and laptop-based fleet supervision as the base machine (one operator can watch up to 8 units), on a 400-gallon tank with interchangeable vineyard and apple/high-density-orchard spray towers rather than the base machine's larger 600-gallon tank. Sold and serviced only through the John Deere/GUSS dealer network in the US and Australia; GUSS Automation is now a John Deere subsidiary following an acquisition confirmed on GUSS's own site.
Best for: Commercial vineyard, high-density-orchard and berry operations in the US or Australia that need a narrower, lower-profile autonomous sprayer than the base Orchard GUSS — its standard height (5 ft 4 in) and 400-gallon tank are sized for tighter row spacing rather than large tree-nut orchards.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.| Mini GUSS Verified 2026-07-19 | 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 | 2026-07-19 | 2026-07-19 |
| Specifications | ||
| Power source | Diesel — Cummins F3.8 173 hp Stage V engine; 77-gallon fuel cell gives roughly 12 hours of runtime (agtecher.com; not listed on gussag.com's own Mini GUSS page) | 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 | 19 ft long x 6 ft wide x 5 ft 4 in tall (standard/transport configuration); 9 ft 2 in tall with the Apple Tower fitted; 9 ft tall with the Vineyard Tower fitted (gussag.com) | 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 | Approx. 8,800-8,840 lb (3,990-4,010 kg) empty — two secondary listings give close but non-identical figures (agtecher.com: 8,840 lb / 4,010 kg; agricultural-robotics.com: 8,800 lb / 3,992 kg); not published on gussag.com itself | 2,000 kg / 4,409 lb (unladen, without payload) |
| Min farm size | Not disclosed as a number; GUSS markets the Mini GUSS at commercial vineyard/orchard/berry scale, not hobby-farm scale | Not disclosed |
| Productivity | 77-gallon fuel cell gives approximately 12-hour runtime (agtecher.com); one operator can monitor/supervise up to 8 GUSS units at once from a laptop (GUSS fleet-supervision model, per agtecher.com and GUSS company materials) | 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 and onboard vehicle sensors for autonomous row navigation and obstacle avoidance (agtecher.com; consistent with the GUSS family's published navigation stack) | RTK GPS precision navigation; LiDAR + camera sensor fusion for obstacle detection and collision avoidance |
| Price & model | ||
| Price (EUR) | ≈€261,000 (converted from the agtecher.com USD listing; not independently confirmed by the manufacturer) | Not disclosed |
| Native price | $283,660 USD (agtecher.com equipment-marketplace listing — GUSS Automation does not publish Mini GUSS pricing on its own site, same as the sibling base GUSS profile in this catalog; a separate secondary listing (agricultural-robotics.com) gives a bundled $300K-400K range across the whole GUSS/Mini GUSS/Herbicide GUSS family, not Mini-GUSS-specific, which is a loose but not contradictory cross-check) | Not disclosed |
| Business model | Buy, sold and serviced through the John Deere/GUSS Automation dealer network in the US and Australia (gussag.com dealer locator); no Mini-GUSS-specific lease or pay-for-service option was found (contrast Herbicide GUSS, which GUSS does offer as a service option per the sibling base-GUSS profile). | 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 and spray consumables (nozzles, pump wear parts); no published service-cost figures were found. GUSS's own Mini GUSS page notes eligibility for California's CARB FARMER equipment-replacement incentive funding, a US-specific program, not a running cost. | 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 | Chemical and water use with the Smart Apply option up to 50% chemical and water savings on average (vendor figure) · vendor | Vineyard spraying work rate +34% · vendor |
| EU context | ||
| CE marking | Not disclosed — no CE-marking evidence found on gussag.com; the manufacturer's own dealer locator lists only US and Australia coverage | 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 Mini 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; in the US, GUSS's own Mini GUSS page notes eligibility for California's CARB FARMER equipment-replacement incentive program, which is unrelated to EU CAP | 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.