Drones: Saving wine from climate change

Chuck Bednar for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online

Wineries are going high-tech in the battle against climate change, turning increasingly to technology and scientific research as part of an effort to prevent warmer, drier conditions from causing their lands to become unusable.

According to USA Today, roughly 60 percent of California-based vineyards could become unusable for wine production by the year 2050. In addition, research published last February in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences indicates that 68 percent in Mediterranean Europe and up to 73 percent in Australia could also be in trouble.

Winemakers aren’t just sitting around letting this happen, though, according to NPR reports. Some have started using a special sunscreen for their grapes, while others have adopted the use of pre-heat-wave microsprays or special sensors that can be controlled remotely.

A few have even established experimental vineyards to analyze the potential impact of warmer, drier conditions on their crop yields, an others have recruited laboratories to work on genetically modified grapes that, with luck, will be able to better withstand hotter temperatures.

Then there is Ryan Kunde, the winemaker at Sebastopol, California-based DRNK Wines. Kunde has begun utilizing a fleet of drones to collect aerial images that NPR explains can be used to better determine the vigor, ripeness, flavor and harvest dates of the wine, which have changed over the past few years due to rising soil temperatures.

Kunde uses the drones and the images they capture as part of what he calls a “precision farming” movement to determine which areas require less fertilizer, water or energy. While some experts told NPR that these types of measures are not preventive and could just be delaying the inevitable, others argue that many vineyards aren’t experiencing climate changes that are significant enough to cause serious damage to their crops.

While some vineyards are being harmed by global warming, it has reportedly benefitted the industry in other areas. The industry, which nets nearly $300 globally, has experienced a 1.9 percent annual decline from 2009 through 2014, NPR said. However, it has grown 10 percent each year in Tasmania, and Northern Europe and China are also said to be “promising locales.”

Nonetheless, a team of international researchers led by University of Adelaide professor of viticulture Stephen Tyerman have joined forces on the Vineyard of the Future project. Their goal is to use automated data collection and analysis techniques to develop a fully-instrumented vineyard, and the project is also described as “a test-bed for new technology and a trial site to investigate potential effects of climate change” on the industry.

Recently, they discovered that cooling vines during a heat wave can keep cells within a berry from dying, NPR said. Tyerman and his colleagues use near-infrared sensors to scan a 2.4-acre vineyard, finding hot spots and determining how much water needs to be applied at any given time. Researchers from Spain, Chile and the US are also involved in the project, and NPR said that similar initiatives have recently been launched elsewhere.

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