At Cornell Lake Erie Research and Extension Laboratory (CLEREL), researchers have turned vineyards into tests beds for precision agriculture. The initiative centers on Efficient Vineyard (MyEV), a free, web based platform developed by the institute director Terry Bates and software designer Nick Gunner, with funding from NASA’s Acres program. The testing has made vineyards a living laboratory, of precision, autonomy and sustainability with sensors, drones and digital platforms being evaluated to support farmers from New York and Pennsylvania.
MyEV allows grape growers to import clean and visual sensor based data that can be used to generate prescription maps for guiding vineyard operations. The technology enables farmers to employ standardised methods at the block level, improving accuracy in fertilizer use, pruning, and fruit thinning. The project director of CLEREL has stated the goal of project is to lower the barrier to adopt precision viticulture methods by means of providing accessible tools, experiential learning activities and research field trials.
MyEV for Data Driven Farming
The MyEV project has been partially funded through the NASA Acres program, that translates complex geospatial data into clear, actionable maps. Growers can design farm layouts, integrate data from sensors or smartphones, process and visualize information, and generate management prescription maps for tailored crop care. MyEV is a data driven platform that relies on evidence based insights rather than speculative decisions, where farmers can works from their desktops or smart phones to flag spots for fertiliser use, identify pruning needs and map block level differences with surgical precision.
There is a lot of environmental variation on a farm. But it used to be you’d set machines at a particular rate and just go, a ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach. We’ve started to get into precision viticulture, using ag sensors, soil sensors and canopy sensors in order to spatially map the variability in the vineyard.
Essentially, MyEV uses sensors that interpret vine’s condition. One such example is a scan conducted by institute director Tyler Bates, he paired field validation through mobile mapping app data collector which enabled him to identify freeze damage and predict fruit cluster counts across blocks. Bates envisions a future where tools such as frost mapping, variable thinking and autonomous robots for vineyard analytics, early disease detection and precision weed control become standard practice integrating themselves with conventional farming practices.
Integrating Precision Viticulture Methods
At Cornell University, researchers are using precision techniques across multiple aspects of vineyard management, with the MyEV platform merging as a central tool for decision-making. Bates has stated that the goal of their multi disciplinary team is to integrate existing vineyard mechanisation techniques with autonomous tool carriers and robotic pruning arms to address a complex and costly production practice.
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In Concord Grape Blocks, Normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) data fed into MyEV informed stratified sampling with prescription maps enabled mechanical harvesters enabled guided stratified sampling and informed a variable rate thinning prescription. This resulted in vines with improved leaf to fruit balance, supporting both fruit quality this year and yield potential for the next.
Yu Jiang, an assistant professor at Cornell AgriTech, is using robotic platforms such as the PhytoPatholoBot, to patrol vineyards and captures high resolution physiological data. These datasets can be paired with MyEV to guide decisions. Katie Gold, at Cornell Tech, is pioneering early disease detection through hyperspectral imaging, gathering data with no plant disturbance. Her Lab combines rover based scans with aerial surveys from NASA’s AVIRIS-3 flights, generating advanced maps of canopy chemistry, water health and disease risk that can perfectly compliment MyEV’s Geospatial components.
Assistant Professor at Cornell AgriTech, Lynn Sosnoskie is testing robot mounted weeders and vision guided sprayers that reduces chemical and soil disruption, with a potential to link MyEV for a fuller view of vineyard health.