Hortau

About: A more abundant future

Since 2002, Hortau has been pioneering precision agriculture with a focus on optimizing crop yields, conserving water, and reducing environmental impact. Headquartered in the heart of North America’s agricultural regions, the company helps growers maximize the productivity of their land while lowering costs and improving quality.

Hortau’s patented irrigation management system combines IoT connectivity with agronomic expertise, giving growers real-time insight into soil and plant health. By shifting from guesswork to data-driven decisions, farmers are better able to balance water use against crop needs, improving efficiency at every stage of the growing cycle.

As populations rise and arable land remains finite, Hortau’s mission is increasingly urgent: ensuring growers can meet rising demand for food while making responsible use of the world’s most precious natural resources.

"Having grown up on a farm, I understand the complexity of farming and what it takes to grow a profitable crop. After leaving the farm it became clear that to maintain consistent crop health, yield and quality, growers need access to real-time and forecasted information – to anticipate, adjust, manage inputs precisely – and repeat their success year after year, across every acre."

Jocelyn Boudreau

CEO and Co-Founder

Hortau

Challenge: The most precious resource

For most people, farming is synonymous with land. But for growers, water is every bit as important. According to the USDA’s 2012 Census of Agriculture, irrigated farms represented just 14% of all U.S. farms, yet accounted for nearly 40% of total U.S. farm sales, a staggering $152 billion in value. Water, in short, is what makes the land produce.

Globally, agriculture consumes up to 70% of freshwater resources, and in produce-heavy states like California, that percentage is even higher. With climate pressures and rising demand straining supply, efficient irrigation has become a critical factor in both economic and political debates. For growers, water management directly influences both profitability and long-term viability.

The real challenge lies in knowing how much water plants actually need. Even with groundwater monitoring, it can be difficult to assess soil conditions at the root level. Overwatering wastes precious resources and can compromise crop quality, while underwatering risks reduced yields or even crop failure. In an industry where margins are slim and risks are high, that margin of error can be devastating.

Solution: Applied IoT for plant-centric irrigation

Hortau’s breakthrough lies in its plant-focused approach. Instead of measuring groundwater or surface irrigation levels, Hortau stations continuously measure soil tension – the precise metric that shows how much effort a plant must expend to access water. This provides growers with a direct window into plant health, allowing them to irrigate based on need rather than estimation.

The system is built around wireless, real-time IoT sensors that transmit data to a secure cloud platform. Farm managers and agronomists can access dashboards that visualize plant stress, soil conditions, and irrigation effectiveness. Alerts and analytics help them fine-tune watering schedules, ensuring crops receive exactly the right amount of water at the right time.

The results speak for themselves. A California pistachio grower using Hortau reduced tree mortality from nearly 30% to almost zero. An onion grower cut water use by 25-30%, while grape and cranberry growers reported measurable improvements in fruit quality. Across diverse crops, Hortau consistently demonstrates that smarter irrigation yields healthier plants and stronger bottom lines.

Why Soracom: Multicarrier coverage and streamlined operations

As one of the earliest adopters of IoT in agriculture, Hortau has worked with nearly every cellular data provider across North America. The company knows firsthand the challenges of rural connectivity, network fragmentation, and inconsistent billing models. Each of these issues slows deployment and adds unnecessary complexity for growers who simply want reliable data from the field.

Soracom’s multicarrier connectivity removes these obstacles by providing a single, global platform. Hortau can pre-provision devices at the factory and ship them anywhere in the U.S. or Canada, confident that they will connect seamlessly. With pooled pricing, Hortau also avoids overage charges, protecting both their margins and their customers from unexpected costs.

Beyond connectivity, Soracom’s cloud-native services support Hortau’s migration to AWS, offering secure, private communication between field devices and cloud applications. Using Soracom Canal, Gate, and custom DNS services, Hortau ensures its network of devices communicates efficiently and securely, enabling continuous data collection and analysis at scale.

Future Plans: Helping growers across the Americas

Today, Hortau operates thousands of stations across North America, supporting growers of everything from large-scale row crops to high-value specialty crops like berries, nuts, and grapes. The company continues to expand its footprint in the U.S. and Canada, helping farmers adopt data-driven irrigation practices that deliver measurable improvements in both yield and quality.

With operations growing rapidly, Hortau is also beginning to extend its reach into Latin America. These regions face many of the same challenges as North America – limited water supply, rising populations, and increasing demand for sustainable farming practices, making Hortau’s plant-centric model a strong fit.

Looking forward, Hortau remains focused on advancing both technology and adoption. By pairing IoT data with agricultural expertise, Hortau is helping create a farming ecosystem where every drop of water is used wisely and every plant has the opportunity to thrive. For growers across the Americas, that means a more profitable present and a more abundant future.