Aerial Doctors
When I first went to Rombauer for a journalist luncheon in April (I was invited! So cool!), I was introduced to a new way of looking at helping the vines though a process I hadn't known about. Aerial photograpahy, or Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), has been used at some of the "fancier" wineries for ten years or so, but I had never come across it. I was in awe of all the information they can glean from these heat-sensing, color-mapping photos. It's really cool.
Then I was reading in my most recent, summer 2018 On Wisconsin magazine (like a good alumna does), and found that at UW-Madison, a Biological Systems Engineering team are doing a similar thing to find ways to use UAV (drones) to find where pests have invaded the cranberry crops. Seems like they should get together and share info!
Here's my article from Wine Industry advisor.
