Market gardening robot: hoeing and mechanical weeding with your own tools
Weeding can account for a quarter, or even half, of the time spent on a vegetable plot. TOOGO straddles your beds, carries your inter-row hoe or your seed drill, and works for up to 12 h on battery.
The problem
Weeding: the job that eats up your days.
On the organic field vegetable farms monitored by the VivLéBio2 project in the Hauts-de-France region of northern France, hand weeding takes an average of 12 hours per hectare per year, compared with 2.4 hours for mechanical weeding. It accounts for between a quarter and half of the time spent on the plots.1
Conventional growers can no longer avoid it either. With several herbicides withdrawn, hand weeding is back in French vegetable production: up to 77 h/ha for carrots in Normandy, 20 h/ha for leeks. In 2021, 1,400 ha of carrots were weeded by hand.2 And France's Écophyto 2030 strategy, published in May 2024, still targets a 50% reduction in the use of plant protection products.3
The problem is that it takes people. In 2023, French agriculture had around 245,000 planned recruitments, 83% of them seasonal, and 57% were considered difficult to fill.4 In February 2024, employed market gardeners were added to France's official list of shortage occupations.5
234,552 ha
of vegetables in mainland France in 2023
6,934
specialist market gardening farms in France in 2023
× 6
robots in crop production in France between 2018 and 2023 (≈ 100 → 600)
Sources: FranceAgriMer / Agreste6, French Ministry of Agriculture7.
Permanent beds
It fits your beds, not the other way round.
A standard permanent bed is 1.20 m wide; with the wheel tracks, it takes up about 1.50 m overall.8 That is exactly TOOGO's minimum track width. For wider beds, the track opens hydraulically up to 2.20 m.
The robot straddles the bed and the tool works in the centre, between the wheels. Thanks to RTK guidance, TOOGO runs in the same tracks on every pass: the wheel tracks stay wheel tracks and the bed is not compacted. And with 670 mm of ground clearance, it passes over crops that are already well developed.
At the end of the bed, two steering modes, zero turn or Ackermann: it turns round in less than 6 m.
Through the season
From seedbed preparation to the last hoeing pass.
-
Before sowing
Prepare the bed
Tined tools on the hitch, power harrow or rotary tiller on the 540 rpm PTO (up to 18 kW), stale seedbed.
-
Sowing
Sow straight
Precision seed drill on the hitch, driven by the hydraulics or the 96 V / 24 V electrical outlet. Straight rows that make every following hoeing pass easier.
-
Emergence
Weed early
Tine weeder or rotary hoe over the whole surface, at the right stage, because the robot is available when the window opens.
-
Established crop
Hoe up close
Inter-row hoe with shares, blades or finger weeders in float mode. RTK ±2 cm and the side-shifting frame to work right up to the row.
Precision
Right up to the row, even when the row isn't straight.
Positioning relies on 2 GNSS RTK receivers and 3 inertial measurement units: ±2 cm, with no RTK subscription to pay every year.
But a robot that drives straight is not enough if the planting isn't. On TOOGO, the wheels stay in their tracks and it is the central frame, with the tool, that shifts from left to right. As standard, this side-shift is GPS-controlled and corrects guidance deviations. As an option, a camera reads the row and the tool follows the planting itself.
±2 cm
RTK accuracy
€0
RTK subscription
6 km/h
in autonomous work
12 h
of work per charge
Your tools
What you can hitch up.
TOOGO has the same interfaces as a tractor: if the tool runs on your mid-power tractor, there is a good chance it will run on TOOGO.
| Tool | Interface on TOOGO | Use in market gardening |
|---|---|---|
| Inter-row hoe (shares, blades, finger weeders) | Cat. 2 hitch, float mode | Hoeing the inter-row and the row |
| Tine weeder, rotary hoe | Cat. 2 hitch | Full-width weeding, pre-emergence or on young plants |
| Precision seed drill | Hitch, hydraulics or 96 V / 24 V outlet | Sowing on beds |
| Power harrow, rotary tiller | 540 rpm PTO, 18 kW | Seedbed preparation |
| Cultivator, tined tools | Cat. 2 hitch, 18.5 kN drawbar pull | Shallow cultivation, stale seedbed |
| Ridger | Hitch, hydraulics 2 DA + 1 SA | Ridging (leeks, potatoes, etc.) |
Compatibility depends on weight (1,600 kg on the hitch), width and the power required. We check it with you, tool by tool, before the demo.
TOOGO is for you if…
- you grow field vegetables, on beds or in rows;
- you already have tractor tools (inter-row hoe, seed drill, harrow);
- weeding and hoeing take up too much of your time or labour;
- you want one machine for several jobs, from one season to the next.
What you should know
- For now, an operator supervises the machine while it works. The unsupervised mode is being certified.
- The minimum track width is 1.50 m: TOOGO is not designed for micro-farms under cover.
- Weeding quality depends on the implement: TOOGO positions and guides it, it does not replace it.
The market
Other robots for market gardening
In 2023, around 250 robots were already working in market gardening in France.9 Most are specialised robots, supplied with their own tools or weeding technology. TOOGO took a different approach: a tool carrier that takes tractor implements.
| Manufacturer | Machine | Principle |
|---|---|---|
| Naïo (France) | Oz | Small electric weeding robot for market gardening |
| Carré (France) | Anatis | Electric hoeing robot guided by GPS and LiDAR |
| FarmDroid (Denmark) | FD20 | Solar-powered robot that sows and weeds by recording the position of every seed |
| Farming Revolution (Germany) | Farming GT | Electric mechanical weeding controlled by image recognition |
| Pixelfarming Robotics (Netherlands) | Robot One | Laser weeding guided by artificial intelligence |
| SIZA Robotics (France) | TOOGO 2.0 | Electric tool carrier: Cat. 2 hitch, hydraulics and PTO for your tools |
Manufacturers' public information, September 2026. Not an exhaustive list; the brands mentioned belong to their respective owners. More details in our market overview.
Will TOOGO fit my beds?
Yes. Its track width adjusts hydraulically from 1.50 m to 2.20 m. A standard 1.20 m permanent bed takes up about 1.50 m including the wheel tracks: TOOGO straddles it with the track closed, and opens up for wider beds.
Does TOOGO weed within the row?
TOOGO carries and guides the tool; the implement does the work. With an inter-row hoe and finger weeders, for example, you work both the inter-row and the row. RTK guidance to ±2 cm and the side-shifting central frame put the tool as close to the crop as possible.
Does a robot replace my staff?
No. TOOGO takes on the repetitive jobs, hoeing and drilling, for which it is getting harder and harder to recruit. Your team focuses on planting, harvesting and packing.
Do I need to be there while TOOGO is working?
For now, yes: autonomous operation requires an operator supervising the machine. The unsupervised mode is being certified and will be offered as a free update.
Does TOOGO compact the beds?
It weighs 2,300 kg unladen, spread over four Alliance Agristar II radial tyres chosen for their low compaction. Thanks to RTK, it runs in the same wheel tracks on every pass, which protects the bed.
Sources
- Action Agricole Picarde, « Légumes de plein champ bio : quelle charge de travail ? », projet VivLéBio2 (Agro-Transfert), 20/09/2021 (in French). Link
- Agra Presse, « Légumes : le retour du désherbage manuel », 2021 data (in French). Link
- OFB, « Stratégie Écophyto 2030 », May 2024 (in French). Link
- Réussir Fruits & Légumes, based on the Pôle emploi BMO 2023 survey, 11/07/2023 (in French). Link
- France Travail, BMO 2025 survey (list of shortage occupations of February 2024) (in French). Link
- FranceAgriMer, « Chiffres-clés fruits et légumes 2024 » (Agreste 2023 data), April 2026 (in French). Link
- Centre d'études et de prospective, French Ministry of Agriculture, « Les robots agricoles en activité en France en 2023 », May 2023 (in French). Link
- GABB32 / CIVAM Gard, « Planches permanentes » fact sheet (in French). Link
- La France Agricole, « Après les stabulations, les robots s'attaquent aux champs », 2023 (in French). Link
See TOOGO on your beds.
A demo on your farm, with your own inter-row hoe or seed drill.