Smarts or knowledge – which one wins at precision agriculture?
Imagine a competition to produce the highest yields of winter wheat between Sheldon Cooper and a winner of the Apprentice. Who would win? It’s tempting to choose the Big Bang brain-box but what if Lord Sugar’s apprentice had spent 10 years working on arable farms in the UK, Australia and the USA before joining the […]
Vineyard yield estimation with smartphone imaging and AI
There is so much potential in those tightly closed flower buds. Over the course of the summer the flowers on vines bloom, turn into tiny green spheres and ultimately heavy bunches of grapes. Or at least that is the hope of the vineyard owner and winery. Accurately estimating the size of the harvest well in […]
Precision viticulture for table grapes
Some farmers do not pick grapes, squash them and then ferment the juice. Some farmers just sell them for eating. And why not? Grapes have long been the gift of choice for hospital visitors. The glucose sugar in grapes is absorbed quickly into the blood stream to provide a burst of energy for a sick […]
Discovering precision viticulture
Imagine sharing a bottle of wine as the sun sets slowly over the vineyard. Who wouldn’t want to work in a winery? Corbeau founder Pierre Graves talks to agronomist Miguel Rodrigues from XpectralTEK about his passion for wine and technology. So what originally inspired Miguel to become a viticulturalist? “It’s actually perfect that you are […]
Micro-LED driven AR smart glasses
Augmented Reality (AR) glasses are now looking remarkably stylish. Forget bulky Virtual Reality (VR) headsets and piratical Google Glass. Optoelectronics company Vuzix (Rochester, NY) has announced a pair of stereo vision glasses offering a head-up display (HUD) of the smartphone in your pocket. Or car. Or back home, actually. CES 2021 (Jan 11-14), a consumer […]
Detection of grapevine trunk disease Esca by hyperspectral imaging
Global viticulture loses more than £1 billion every year due to so-called grapevine trunk diseases (GTD). Some vineyards just suffer a lower yield whereas others can lose the whole vineyard. Esca is one of three main GTD diseases. Unlike the usual seasonal problems such as downy or powdery mildew, GTD have no known treatment or […]
Italian vineyards investigated with Google Earth
At the end of the old year journalists like to write articles summarising events, listing items, totalling numbers. At the beginning of the New Year writers and readers alike become more philosophical, resolving to extract information from mere data and wisdom from observations. Google Earth has been a phenomenal source of data for many years […]
New Raman sensor for precision agriculture
Sometimes stress can just creep up on you. Lack of sleep, lack of nutritious food and not drinking enough water have a cumulative effect. Yes, it’s a tough life being a basil plant. Happily precision agriculture techniques can now give early indication that crops are getting stressed. A new portable Raman sensor may help farmers […]
Climate change: a challenge or an opportunity for viticulture?
October is the time most vineyards have completed the harvest and wineries start the winemaking process. Some wineries are counting a better than ever harvest but others are just counting the cost. This summer the fields of Australia, California, South Africa, Portugal and even Oregon have been ravaged by fire and drought. This year the […]
Finding rare earth elements by hyperspectral imaging
Imagine a world without smart phones, the latest medical imaging or great bass response from your earphones? Nope, nor can I. Worryingly, the continued availability of these essential 21st century pieces of tech is far from certain because they each rely on so-called Rare Earth Elements (REEs). REEs are not particularly rare but they are […]