From fledging pilot project privately funded via NGWI in 2010 to a multi-state, multi-institution project funded via Specialty Crop Research Initiative (SCRI) grant in 2015, Efficient Vineyard represents the promise of mechanization and precision viticulture. With five specific themes--sensor development, spatial data processing, vineyard management applications, economic evaluation and technology outreach--the project has largely focused on making advances in each individual area. But now, as the project enters its third year of government funding, it will begin integrating the technologies the team has developed and seeing how they work together, as they would in practice.

 

This is where the rubber meets the road.

 

"Although the team communicates regularly, progress has mainly happened in silos--until now," says PI Dr. Terry Bates of Cornell University. "We are at a point where activities across disciplines are starting to happen, and that will have a bigger impact on project deliverables."  

 

Terry notes that, already, there are examples from this growing season that show that integration is happening with positive results on several levels. In certain research plots in both East Coast and West Coast vineyards, the team now has a full complement of soil, canopy and crop sensor data layers that have been validated against viticulture metrics. The data also is being semi-automatically processed through spatial statistics software with which researchers can impose and test variable rate management, including variable vineyard mechanization.

"All the puzzle pieces are on the table," Terry says. "Now the challenge is figuring out how they all fit together."