At dawn in the Dry Creek Valley of Sonoma County, CA, the hilltop rows of vines at Trattore Farms stretch toward Geyser Peak and Mount St. Helena. On each slope, vines grow in stone-strewn soils, cooled by Pacific breezes, nurtured by hands and machines alike. The farmer behind it all, Tim Bucher, doesn’t quite fit the traditional mold: he started his farm at age 16, grows olives and grapes in a vertically integrated model, and then transformed his concerns about labor, regulation, and cost into a tech startup driving automation in specialty crops.
Farming by Hand, Vision in Mind
“My older brother took over the family dairy farm, but I bought my first vineyard at 16,” Bucher recalls. “By the time I was in high school I was farming full-time, calling the land Trattore Farms, which is ‘tractor’ in Italian, because I loved machines.” He planted olive trees and vines, built an olive mill and winery, and believed deeply in vertical integration: owning the land, the oil, and the bottle…