Across office parks, campuses and commercial properties, lawn mowers quietly trim grass with no one behind the wheel. For University of Maryland alumnus Brandon Writt, these autonomous mowers are integral to his daily work, demonstrating how precision agriculture is transforming the landscape industry.
His path to working in landscaping started long before his academic career. From the age of 10, he was mowing lawns for neighbors. By high school, he had built a steady client list.
“When I was little, I had a John Deere Gator,” said Writt.“ My parents knew that I enjoyed being outside and messing with equipment, so my dad suggested I start cutting grass.”
Today, Writt works for Shorb Landscaping, serving as a specialty services manager and oversees autonomous mowing operations.
The mowers he works with do not require a driver. Instead they use GPS technology, digital mapping, and advanced software to maintain landscapes across the Washington, D.C. metro area.
Writt believes robotic mowers will become an increasingly important part of the landscaping industry. But for many people, autonomous mowing is an unfamiliar technology.
“In the layman’s term, I call them the Roombas of the yard,“ said Writt.
Like robotic vacuum cleaners, autonomous mowers operate independently and follow programmed instructions. Some systems rely on buried guide wires, while newer models use advanced GPS and real-time kinematic (RTK) positioning technology.
“I call it systematic planning,” said Writt.
The process begins with digital mapping. Using a mobile app, he creates digital boundaries around a property. Trees, landscape beds, and other obstacles become designated exclusion zones.
Once the map is created, nearly every aspect of the mowing operation can be customized. Writt said he is able to set directions, adjust grass height, and create striping patterns.
“It’s all schedule based. They only put out about 60 decibels of sound or less, so you can even have one run at night, and it is really quiet,” said Writt.
Traditional heavy commercial mowers weigh several hundred pounds, which compacts the soil as they traverse the same areas. Robotic mowers are much lighter, weighing anywhere from 30 to 50 pounds. This minimizes soil compaction and improves root development over time.
These battery-powered mowers also reduce fuel use and emissions com-pared to conventional gas-powered equipment, and often the replacement equipment costs less.
“The batteries in these actually have a longer life, and have a longer life expectancy than a gas mower,” said Writt. “You can get a little bit more life out of them, because at the end of the day, it is really just a couple of motors and the blades, and those are consumables.”
Labor is the driving force behind wide-spread adoption of autonomous mowing technology. For Writt’s company, robotic mowing is efficient and allows employ-ees to focus on other landscaping tasks or take on additional work.
“What we are trying to do is reduce our labor hours on properties,” said Writt. “We are not selling our models or the mowers back to customers at a cost. But time is a luxury cost.”
Writt’s career journey was underpinned through his undergraduate studies in Agriculture Business Management through the Institute of Applied Agriculture (IAA) and a future bachelor’s degree in urban forestry from the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources.
“The IAA was a more inclusive program to start out,” Writt said. “I felt very at home.”
Writt said he hopes this type of technology creates new career pathways for new graduates.
“I want to make people aware that there is tech work in the green industry, and I think it will only grow as time goes on,” said Writt.
-Haley Moore
