Page 60 - Grapevine July-Aug 2020
P. 60
Around The Vineyard
Overall, drones can help give vineyard owners a gained prominence in a variety of industries, tech
clearer picture of what is happening in the vine- companies have become more specialized in the
yard. For example, they may be able to pinpoint services they provide. One emerging niche is drone
zones where vigor is higher than desired to remove use for vineyards, and there are several companies
those zones from a fertilizer program. This is useful that have positioned themselves as innovators in
because if a vine’s growth is too vigorous, it can this field. Other technology companies are focused
create a dense canopy that prevents sun exposure on specific agricultural crops, but these advance-
and ripening of the grapes. Vineyard owners can ments could be applied to vineyards in the future.
also monitor water saturation and pest damage to
know where to spray insecticides with drone tech- Hawk Aerial has partnered with VineView
nology. Some vineyards have used tanks strapped Scientific Aerial Imaging and SkySquirrel
to the sides of drones to spray their vineyards for Technologies to bring drone technology to vine-
diseases. yards. With this technology, vineyards can use
calibrated vegetation index maps, leaf roll disease
Droughts have plagued so many American vine- maps, and other features to make important grow-
yards in recent years. This is a major reason why ing decisions.
farmers are looking to drones for help. Hail dam-
age is another common concern. Drones can help SkySquirrel has a Sqweo/Quanta vineyard-specific
inspect the fields to assess damage after hail autonomous drone system that has proven effec-
storms. tive for detecting grapevine disease and providing
aerial diagnostics for grapevine health. The AQWEO
How Drones Analyze Crops QR-200 model, for example, has GPS autopilot, a
multi-rotor for easy take-off and landing between
It’s important for vineyard owners and managers crop rows, and industrial grade components.
to understand exactly how drones analyze crops
to determine whether this technology is right for Yamaha Precision Agriculture Division hopes to
a particular business model. To start, multispectral have its RMax and FAZER technology available to
imagery in drones is able to detect anomalies that farmers by 2018. The company has remotely pilot-
cannot be seen by the human eye. Many drones ed helicopters designed for agricultural use that
that are specialized for vineyard use have a field provide essential spraying services for pesticides,
uniformity algorithm that helps quantify the rela- herbicides, and fertilizers. The devices can also be
tive density and health of the grapes. equipped with sensors to monitor crops for future
treatment.
Drones can also have sensors that measure
temperature and humidity, and then they com- PrecisionHawk specializes in drones and aerial
municate that information through a transceiver. data analysis for many different industries, includ-
Based on drone data, soil moisture monitors can ing agriculture, energy, insurance, and construc-
measure water volume at different soil depths as tion. It has 2D and 3D map processing, 11 crop
well. Essentially all of these capabilities play into a analytics tools, early disease detection abilities, and
vineyard staff’s ability to look for patterns and crop professional-grade drone flight servicing.
issues to make recommendations and improve the
health of their grapes. This is because drones can 3DR’s work uses a Solo drone with the Site Scan
produce normalized difference vegetation index application to generate maps that identify crop
imagery that goes far beyond the manual capacity stress and equipment issues, while also creating
of any other monitoring method. digital elevation models of the field. This company
works with other industries as well, such as public
Tech Companies Using Drones safety, utilities, and telecom.
As drones have advanced technologically and Leading Edge Technologies offers Sensefly fixed
Page 58 The Grapevine • July - August 2020 877-892-5332
Grapevine Main Pages GV070820_Layout 1-1 .indd 58 6/18/20 4:48 PM
