Precision Irrigation Company Celebrates 15 Years
Hortau, a company that developed one of the first web-bade irrigation management systems, celebrates its 15-year anniversary.
The company designs products to help growers take the guesswork out of irrigation management. Hortau’s wireless irrigation field technology, combined with its cloud-based software, securely reports to owners and ranch managers how crops are faring in real time.
Using soil tension to determine the precise amount of water to be applied, Hortau’s proprietary system has helped growers improve plant health, boost yields and cut irrigation costs.
Hortau systems have been used for growing corn, cranberries, almonds, blueberries and more.
The patented soil tension sensors allow growers to detect plant stress, which is the driving factor in crop yield and quality before the damage is done. This proven technology greatly increases a grower’s water-use efficiency and cuts down on fertilizer leaching, thus improving the bottom line.
Hortau recently opened a new U.S. headquarters in San Luis Obispo, Calif., a year after unveiling a new Canada headquarters in Lévis, Québec.
The company has grown to more than 90 employees globally, with smart field systems installed from coast to coast in the U.S. and Canada, as well as in Turkey, Morocco, Peru and Egypt. Hortau was founded on May 15, 2002, in Québec, Canada, by two agriculturally minded entrepreneurs, Dr. Jean Caron, an agronomist with a Ph.D in Soil Physics, and Jocelyn Boudreau, an agricultural engineer with a M.Sc. in Soil Physics.
Other recent milestones and awards including Hortau being named to the THRIVE AgTech Top 50 Growth companies list earlier this year. In 2016, Hortau was named to the Global Cleantech Top 100 Companies to Watch List.
