How does the robot pick mushrooms without bruising them?

The same way a good picker does. Mycionics robotic fingers have a firm core and a soft outer layer, with force sensing. They tilt and twist the mushroom off the compost instead of pulling it. Harvested mushrooms pass the same cooler tests as hand-picked ones, and in the South Mill Champs pilot robot-picked quality was above hand picking.

Can the system integrate into my existing farm infrastructure?

Yes. On shelf farms, Mycionics packing units connect to the standard blue-belt conveyor and take over packing, about half of harvest labour, with no change to the rooms. On drawer farms, picking and packing units sit on the stack together with Crop Scout and the farm is laid out around them from the start.

How fast is a robotic picking unit compared to a human picker?

A skilled picker harvests about 65 pounds of mushrooms an hour. A robotic unit does not tire, does not need breaks, and holds the same quality standard at every pick. A system of several units on a stack picks at the pace of a team of human pickers.

What kind of data and crop intelligence does the system provide?

Crop Scout scans each bed and builds a digital copy of the farm, following every mushroom from a 4 mm pin to the box. Growers get a five-day yield forecast, maps of areas that need attention, and picker performance by bed. Where robots pick or pack, their own cameras provide the same view. At South Mill Champs, Crop Scout raised yield 7.8% in 2026, measured by the grower.

What is hybrid harvesting and do I still need staff?

Yes. Hybrid harvesting means robots take the repetitive picking and packing, and people keep the work that needs judgment: separating clusters, thinning and checking quality. Staff become the supervisors of a more productive room.

Automating the hand work fresh food still depends on

AI robots for fragile, irregular produce, at industrial scale, already at work on commercial mushroom farms.

Explore Our Solutions

The Problem

Mushrooms are the most productive crop in agriculture. One acre of growing bed yields about a million pounds a year, indoors, every day of the year. Almost all of it is picked by hand. Picking is skilled, fast and delicate work in warm, humid rooms, and it is the largest cost on the farm.

That labour is harder to find and more expensive every year. Farms in North America and Europe cannot fill 12 to 18% of picking jobs, minimum wages rise 4 to 10% a year, and the foreign worker programs many farms rely on are shrinking. Meanwhile the price farms get for mushrooms has barely moved. Margins are thin, and rooms go under-picked.

The farms that automate first keep their rooms full and take the volume from those that cannot find pickers. For that to work, automation has to fit the farm as it is, protect quality, and pay for itself within a few years.

Picker harvesting mushrooms by hand on a shelf farm

Mycionics robotic unit on a drawer growing system

Our Vision

Mycionics builds AI robots for fragile, irregular produce, made for wet, harsh rooms. They are already at work on commercial mushroom farms: modular robots that pick and pack next to human harvesters, and Crop Scout, a vision system that maps every mushroom on every bed and forecasts the crop.

Every unit we install sees the crop it works on. Together they are building the largest record of crop growth and harvest in agriculture. That record trains the AI behind perception, grasping and harvest strategy, and guides picking, growing and staffing decisions on the farm.

Mushrooms came first because they are one of the hardest crops to handle and they grow indoors all year, so the robots work about 350 days a year. The same modular perception and handling framework applies to other fragile, irregular produce, so growers everywhere can produce affordable, high-quality food without depending on labour they cannot find.

Mycionics robotic fingers in blue nitrile gloves picking a mushroom

Mycionics robot handling freshly picked mushrooms

Crop Scout marking the mushrooms to pick on a growing bed

The Mycionics Advantage

Quality

Human-like grip

Quality above hand picking

Human-like picking

Precision handling

30–80 mm range

Our system ensures pristine product quality with a custom-engineered robotic gripper that mimics the human hand. Outfitted with soft "flesh" and precise force feedback, the gripper executes calculated pivoting and twisting motions to cleanly extract both white and brown mushrooms (30mm to 80mm). This patented "human-like" touch passes the same cooler tests as hand-picked mushrooms, and in the South Mill Champs pilot its quality was above hand picking.

Food safety

Same hygiene routine

Wash-down safe

Nitrile glove system

Full traceability

No exposed lubricants

We reduce food-safety risk by enclosing the robots in housings that can be washed down and steamed, with no exposed lubricants. The robotic fingers wear the same replaceable nitrile gloves as human harvesters, so the farm's hygiene routine does not change. And because every mushroom is scanned from a 4 mm pin to the box, each box can be traced back to its bed.

Crop intelligence

AI crop monitoring

3D vision scan

Real-time insights

5-day forecasting

+7.8% yield (2026)

Creating a complete digital twin, our 3D vision and AI scans the growing bed to track the precise geometry and mass of your crop. The AI monitors biological indicators, like cap flattening, to ensure you "always pick the right mushroom at the right time" before quality degrades. This real-time intelligence gives growers 5-day yield forecasting and guided harvesting. Latest results at South Mill Champs show a 7.8% yield increase, measured by the grower, which is more than 1 million extra pounds of mushrooms a year.

Hybrid labour

Robots + people

Human + AI model

2-3 year payback

Focus on quality tasks

We learned on the farm that automating 100% of the work is complex, expensive and not what growers want. Our hybrid model gives robots the repetitive picking and packing, on new drawer farms and on existing shelf farms, and keeps people on the work that needs judgment: separating clusters, thinning and checking quality. The result is a practical return, with a typical payback of two to three years.

Commercial mushroom growing room with beds stacked on shelves

Why mushrooms?

Mushrooms are the most productive crop in agriculture by floor area, grown indoors every day of the year, and almost entirely picked by hand. That combination makes them both the best target for farm robotics and the hardest one.

Read the full story

Mycionics Crop Scout online yield forecaster screen

South Mill Champs Boosts Yield 7.8% with Mycionics Crop Scout | Case Study

Latest results are showing a 7.8% yield increase with Crop Scout at South Mill Champs, measured by the grower: about 1.07 million extra pounds of mushrooms a year. The update explains the figure; the original case study follows.

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Podcast Spotlight: How Automation is Transforming Commercial Mushroom Farming

Bryan Madden, Farms Director at South Mill Champs, on The Robot Industry Podcast: how robotic harvesting and Crop Scout are helping one of North America's largest mushroom farms work with better data.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Automating the hand work fresh food still depends on

The Problem

Our Vision

Our Solutions

Pick

Pack

Point

Plan