Joining Lumo: Executing Irrigations to Plan
Agriculture has always pulled me in.
Growing up in San Luis Obispo County, I wasn’t directly involved in farming, but it surrounded me. In college, I built a greenhouse and spent hours propagating plants, experimenting, and losing myself in the process.
My curiosity was scientific at heart: math, biology, and data. Ultimately, wine was what tied everything together. It fused science with math, history, art and culture, and set me on the path toward viticulture.
I studied Ag Business at Cal Poly, and later earned a Master’s in Wine & Enology in France. I landed in Napa Valley in 2014 to complete my thesis on plant-water relations, relying on a pressure chamber and Fruition Sciences’ sap-flow sensors to advise growers on when to irrigate. It was some of the most precise work being done at the time: pre-dawn leaf water potential readings to confirm how much water a vine had and determine how long until the next irrigation.
But even then, something didn’t sit right.
I could prescribe irrigation precisely, yet what was actually executed in the field often looked very different. I hadn’t yet considered the infrastructure, the valves, lines, people, and controls that determine whether an irrigation plan becomes reality. I assumed water went on exactly as intended, but in truth, a lot could (and did) go wrong between plan and execution. That gap stuck with me.
After my master’s, I dove deeper into AgTech. I installed soil-moisture probes, weather stations, irrigation control systems, and even worked on an irrigation-forecasting tool. I spent countless hours troubleshooting hardware in the field and saw firsthand how fragile these systems could be. Sensors broke, data dropped, and customers were left frustrated when complex or cobbled-together systems failed to deliver. Some platforms were sleek but didn’t provide much value. Others were powerful but too cumbersome for growers to use.
By 2019, I was leasing a small vineyard in Coombsville. Managing it myself brought the problem into sharp focus. Beyond the sheer amount of work, there was the reality of unforgiving weather and the operational tasks that had to get done no matter what was on my schedule. I handled everything, from pruning and spraying to harvesting, but often depended on the owner to open and close the irrigation valves.
Sometimes they would turn them on after work and shut them off hours later, maybe after dinner. Rough durations, not exact volumes. If something went wrong, it wasn’t caught for days. And that was on just one acre. Scale that across tens, hundreds, or thousands of acres, and the questions become urgent: Is your irrigation plan actually being executed? How do you know?
The lack of control drove me crazy...
Especially knowing how much effort went into irrigation planning. I spent countless pre-dawn mornings in vineyards, catching Napa sunrises while taking pressure-bomb readings. I knew how painful that data was to collect.
And I saw the same frustrations in orchards such as cherries, nuts, and citrus, where failed valves left rows flooded and equipment inaccessible: wasted water, wasted labor, wasted time. I’ve heard stories of blown lines, broken risers, and pumps over-pressured to failure, a result of systems that demanded near-constant attention and relied on institutional knowledge that was difficult to pass on. Infrastructure is mission critical for farmers, yet even as many growers pay heavily for outside consulting, they still have no confirmation or assurance that irrigations are actually going as planned.
That’s why Lumo feels different.
Having seen technology fail in the past, it wasn’t until I heard a vineyard manager talking about how great Lumo was that I really started to pay attention.
The more I dug in, the more I saw the positive impact it had on operations. Lumo takes full ownership of the hardware, and it’s built with embedded sensors that provide reliable, real-time data. The software is simple yet robust, and the system has been proven in the field, delivering ROI growers can see, not just promises.
To me, Lumo isn’t just about water savings, labor efficiency, or yield improvements. It’s insurance for irrigation infrastructure itself. It protects growers from risk, closes the gap between planning and execution, and gives absolute confidence that irrigations are happening the way they were meant to.
Plenty of companies in agriculture talk about change. Lumo is delivering it with a rugged product and a qualified group of folks that stand behind it.
I’m excited to be part of a team that has truly grabbed the bull by the horns and built something growers not only want, but increasingly feel they can’t live without.
If you're also interested in closing the gap between your plan and execution, and achieving higher levels of irrigation performance and precision, you can request a demo here or contact us at [email protected]