Drones, Satellites, and Other Futuristic Vineyard Technology
We gave a talk at #bcwine‘s Insight conference on “Drones, Satellites, and Other Futuristic Vineyard Technology”. The talk is here and the slide deck here.
The topic came up because of requests from members to hear more about the state of tech and where we’re going for vineyards.
We primarily covered:
1. Vineyard Spraying
2. Irrigation Systems
3. Multispectral (eg. NDVI)
We spent less time on major capital investments like automatic tractors or more niche, technical uses like handheld thermal cameras (although they can do some cool things).
The major goal was to communicate (a) what’s almost here but not quite like drone spraying and (b) actionable steps you can take in your vineyard – even without using drones or satellites.
I hope the #1 takeaway was that there ARE things you can do to increase your vineyard profitability, increase quality, and reduce labour. This is by thinking about thinking about your vineyard not only in blocks, but also in Management Zones which almost never conform neatly to blocks.
Within these zones you’ll find clear differences in plant vigor, health, yield, and fruit quality (among many other things).
As well, studies on multispectral data can teach us very important and useful things about plant physiology that have very practical impacts on how we think about and manage our vineyards.
We re-recorded the presentation to make it easier to watch (and see the slides). If you have any questions, or are interested in learning more about this tech – shoot us an email or message.
