Danny Bernstein 🍇🥬

now: founder & CEO @ReservoirFarms, a new rural institution. before: Goog, Msft, Stanford, Davis

[Reservoir Farms @reservoirfarms]

150 sign-ups. 3 weeks away.

Ruggedize was just a concept 6 months ago — now it's real, backed by @JohnDeere, @WesternGrowers , @OpenRoboticsOrg, @GoogleStartups, 9 North Group, @BecksHybrids, @ecorobotix, @AerisM2M , Yamaha Agriculture, @SiliconVlyBank, @CityofSalinas & @NutrienAgRetail.

Aug 26–27, Salinas, CA.

Join us: https://t.co/tRuAeIOBHb

#Ruggedize2026

[Reservoir Farms @reservoirfarms]

we invest in rugged ai, and incubate agtech startups

3 focuses we're watching:
→ physics > chemicals
→ AI spotting the one weird thing in the field
→ robots taking jobs humans won't

Know a startup? Drop it below.

[Danny Bernstein 🍇🥬 @bernsteinres]

@austinbishop We’d love to host you. Can comp a ticket if you can swing it.

[Danny Bernstein 🍇🥬 @bernsteinres]

Ruggedize has exceeded every metric we set ahead of time. Sponsors, speakers, registrations. And we're still a few weeks out. Here's how it started.

Last October we gathered a group of friends and talked about the moment we're living through. Agriculture is in the deepest tech moment in its history. Rugged physical AI can finally work outdoors, in dust, heat, and mud. A golden age of ag robotics is arriving exactly when the labor to scale these industries isn't available.

We also saw a bigger opportunity: bridging tech with ag. Silicon Valley and the Salinas Valley sit an hour apart and operate as separate worlds. The robotics conversation in SF needs a proving ground. The growers who feed the country need what that conversation is building.

So we started from a blank page, with input from @JohnDeere, @Walt_Duflock from @WesternGrowers, and the CEOs we lean on for advice on our own journey: @TimBucher, @paulmikesell, @niday_tyler, @Ben_Andros_Eng and many others.

The outcome: Ruggedize. A first of its kind deep tech conference in Salinas, the Salad Bowl of the World. Along the way we met people we never expected in the room, from USDA to the FBI, and what we saw as an opportunity turned out to be a movement.

Our whole thesis is technology as resilience. This is what it looks like when the people building that future get in one room (err one farm).

Aug 26-27. https://t.co/5XDtuNF6y1. DMs open.

[Danny Bernstein 🍇🥬 @bernsteinres]

@KTmBoyle @davidu An open invitation to see AgTech + American Dynamism in Salinas, CA — @reservoirfarms. And soon, Arizona, Washington, and beyond.

[Rep. Jimmy Panetta @RepJimmyPanetta]

Our wineries are caught in the crossfire between this Administration’s senseless trade war and Quebec’s refusal to put our wines on their shelves for sale. That’s why I led a bipartisan letter to urge Quebec to resume imports and the sale of American wine so that our local growers, producers, and workers aren’t forced to pay the price.

https://t.co/jybc7Qj0uY

[Danny Bernstein 🍇🥬 @bernsteinres]

<2 months until @ReservoirFarms launches in Arizona.

AgTech for the desert, arid environments, and our winter domestic supply/security for leafy greens and much more.

With @uarizona, @WesternGrowers, @JohnDeere — can’t wait. 🌵

[Danny Bernstein 🍇🥬 @bernsteinres]

@IanDodds_ @reservoirfarms are we not hosting your wedding there

[Danny Bernstein 🍇🥬 @bernsteinres]

@arthrchen What’s the second rule?

[Danny Bernstein 🍇🥬 @bernsteinres]

3 years too early to the greatest party of all time.

[Barry Schwartz @rustybrick]

ICYMI: Google Assistant to start going away on September 4th https://t.co/4DSSKdMUxB

[Danny Bernstein 🍇🥬 @bernsteinres]

Hard tech for the resilient ones.

Let’s automate the hardest jobs and replace chemicals at scale.

Come build with us @reservoirfarms.

h/t @GraceWodecki & @chrischandlr

[Danny Bernstein 🍇🥬 @bernsteinres]

@jared_western @reservoirfarms bring it on, we'd love to test it at reservoir

[Danny Bernstein 🍇🥬 @bernsteinres]

here is a day in the life @reservoirfarms. the first on-farm startup / deep tech incubator on planet earth.

our focus is on 3 areas: physics for chemical replacement, AI for chemical reduction, and automation of farm jobs nobody wants to do.

situated on 40 acres in Salinas Valley, 1 hour down from Silicon Valley.

[Danny Bernstein 🍇🥬 @bernsteinres]

@jared_western @reservoirfarms agree that indoor is viable / valuable as well but the soon remains an efficient energy source for food production

[Danny Bernstein 🍇🥬 @bernsteinres]

Tomorrow I get 17 minutes in front of 225 people who influence how and where the State of Washington invests for the future.

Here is what I plan to say.

@ReservoirFarms started by asking. In 2024 we surveyed more than 100 growers, startups, and agribusinesses. Four answers came back again and again.

There is nowhere to test technology on a real farm all year round. Startups do not understand what farmers actually need. Tools cost a million dollars and solve a small problem. Investors fund companies before the product is ready.

So we built startup incubators on working farms. Companies move in, build and test alongside real growers in real conditions, and scale what works.

Today that is farms in California and Arizona (soon), hundreds of acres farmed by professionals, and a global network we recruit startups from.

Washington is where we go next, as our flagship Pacific Northwest location.

Tree fruit and blueberries. Apples, pears, cherries. The research base at WSU is world class, the growers are organized and demanding in the best way, partners like Steve Mantle and Erik Benson, and a region deep in robotics and sensing talent.

Our expansion model is to work alongside local partners rather than plant a flag. Adjacent to a working farm. Precision shop and office access. Infill, not sprawl.

Three people building this with us will participate for the last stretch of the session:
🍎 Karl Dye, President and CEO of TRIDEC
🍎 Dr. Ines Hanrahan, Executive Director of the Washington Tree Fruit Research Commission
🍎 Dr. Naidu Rayapati, Director of WSU's Irrigated Agriculture Research and Extension Center in Prosser

Then October. @gofar_fira comes to the Yakima Valley, and we intend to have more to say about Washington by then.

Technology as resilience. Washington has the assets. We would like to help put them to work.

[Danny Bernstein 🍇🥬 @bernsteinres]

@reynoir_will @reservoirfarms email me at [email protected]

[Danny Bernstein 🍇🥬 @bernsteinres]

@reynoir_will @reservoirfarms believe someone from our team will be there

[Reservoir Farms @reservoirfarms]

less than 2% of specialty crop ag is automated.

not because the tech isn't there… because startups aren't testing in real fields, and growers can't afford to bet on unproven tech.

that's the gap Reservoir Farms exists to close: startup to grower.

what's agtech's biggest blindspot?

[Danny Bernstein 🍇🥬 @bernsteinres]

Beagle Tech (@BeagleTechAI) is running the V100 in celery this Wednesday in Gonzales. Live in the field, 10am, at the @RijkZwaan field day.

Celery is a hard crop to automate. Heavy, variable, and you cut low and blind. Worth seeing what holds up in real harvest conditions.

[Danny Bernstein 🍇🥬 @bernsteinres]

meet Alexa. she runs our Salinas incubator, manages the farm (40 acres), drives tractors and forklifts, runs the shop and safety protocols, and spends her free time developing our Arizona expansion.

she epitomizes @reservoirfarms’ capital (and self) efficient approach to ag R&D.

a legend in the making👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼