Friday, 17 February 2023 11:25

New tech to monitor and manage 'Ghost Vines'

Written by  Staff Reporters
Cropsy’s head of product & innovation Dr Gareth Hill says the company’s current vision system can measure the current state of grapevines. Cropsy’s head of product & innovation Dr Gareth Hill says the company’s current vision system can measure the current state of grapevines.

New Zealand agritech start-up Cropsy Technologies is leading a $1.3 million SFF Futures/ AGMARDT co-funded project to help growers identify and replace grapevines that are missing, dead, dying or otherwise unproductive Ñ also known as 'Ghost Vines'.

"This project will develop tools to help growers understand the health and productivity of every vine in their vineyards in order to identify missing, dead, dying or otherwise unproductive grapevines,” says Cropsy’s head of product & innovation Dr Gareth Hill.

The company has been awarded a $534,000 project grant through the Ministry for Primary Industries’ (MPI’s) Sustainable Food and Fibre Futures (SFF Futures) fund and a $200,000 AGMARDT Agribusiness Innovation grant to lead a project titled, ‘You know I can’t harvest your Ghost Vines: Vineyard-scale monitoring of unproductive vines’.

“These vines receive all the labour, water, and other vineyard inputs that other vines do without contributing to the overall productivity of the vineyard. For all intents and purposes these vines are either missing or may as well be, which is why we call them ‘Ghost Vines’,” Hill explains.

“There are over 40,000 hectares of New Zealand vineyards with many tens-of-millions of vines, so ghost vines pose a hidden threat to the sustainability of the industry. This is both environmentally inefficient through land use and financially through lost production and avoidable vineyard expansion. Monitoring the health and productivity of this number of vines reliably right now is simply impossible.”

Cropsy’s current vision system can measure the current state of grapevines.

However, by also measuring and analysing the state of every vine and its neighbours over time, the Ghost Vines project will enable the diagnosis of declining productivity and disease at the earliest possible stage.

“We are building up a ‘patient history’ of all the vines in a vineyard,” Hill adds. “By putting each vine’s performance into context we’ll be able to make more accurate forecasts about its productivity and the future of the vineyard as a whole.”

The two-year project is a collaboration with prominent wine companies Pernod Ricard Winemakers, Indevin Group, and Cloudy Bay Vineyards and viticultural consultancy Fantail Consulting.

Pernod Ricard Winemakers believes the collaboration offers benefits for the whole industry.

“Improving the utilisation of resources such as land and water is something that would benefit the entire industry,” says David Allen, viticulture transformation manager. Indevin’s group technical viticulturist Rhys Hall believes the project will push the boundaries of agritech in New Zealand vineyards.

Cloudy Bay is also part of the project.

“It has the potential to provide us with the tools we need for decision making regarding longterm productivity and re-development,” says Cloudy Bay viticulturist John Flanagan.

MPI’s director of investment programmes Steve Penno claims this innovation is unprecedented in New Zealand vineyards.

“The technology-based and data-driven services developed through this project will enable the wine industry to manage their vineyards in a way that’s not currently possible and has the potential to lift productivity significantly – that’s a very exciting prospect.”

About Cropsy Technologies

Founded in 2019, Cropsy is a New Zealand-based start-up, unlocking the full potential of vineyards and orchards with a unique and scalable AI-enabled vision system.

Each of Cropsy’s hardware units attaches to an existing tractor. The system sees and understands every single plant while a grower runs their daily crop operations; profiling every leaf, fruit, shoot, cane, and trunk in real-time as the tractor passes by.

The result is a ‘digital twin’ of the vineyard or orchard; a map clearly showing areas of concern and patterns across the entire crop, so growers know precisely how their crop is performing and changing over time. With an initial focus on grapevines, the product development roadmap will see Cropsy branch into apples and oranges.

More like this

Seed drills carry a new distributor head

Väderstad’s Rapid A 400-800S, Rapid A 600-800C, Spirit 400C/S and Spirit 600-900C/S pneumatic seed drills have received a new distributor head that can be fitted with motors for all outlets.

Solid performer at a sharp price

Waikato dairy farmer Dan Hinton reckons the main reason he hasn’t bought a side-by-side yet is the purchase price, with many brands offering little or no change from $30k to $40k.

An ideal solution for larger farms

Designed specifically for large farms that want to drill with maximum flexibility, efficiency and power, the new Lemken Solitair ST seed drill offers a useful entry into precision farming.

Next generation dual command tractor

Recently showcased in France and set for a wider release at the upcoming EIMA Show in Bologna, the latest New Holland T5 Dual Command tractor range offers five models from 80-117hp, all powered by FPT F36 3.6-litre four-cylinder engines.

Products to keep brassica seeds safe

Forage brassica crops provide an excellent source of energy and protein for grazing livestock at critical times of the year when the quantity and quality of pasture on offer is limiting livestock production.

Featured

Taranaki piggery goes solar

Installing 400 solar panels at their Taranaki piggery and cropping operation will have significant environmental, financial and animal welfare benefits for the Stanley family.

Editorial: Keep FTAs coming

OPINION: The dairy industry will  be a major beneficiary of a new free trade deal between NZ and the Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC).

Sharemilker completes the trifecta

The major winners in the 2024 West Coast/Top of the South Share Farmer of the Year award, Michael and Cheryl Shearer were happy to complete the trifecta.

National

Food charity to hold online auction

Meat the Need, New Zealand’s dedicated charity delivering locally sourced protein meals to food-insecure communities, is launching an online National…

Machinery & Products

An ideal solution for larger farms

Designed specifically for large farms that want to drill with maximum flexibility, efficiency and power, the new Lemken Solitair ST…

Landpower increases its offering

Landpower and the Claas Harvest Centre network will launch the Claas Scorpion and Torion material handling solutions to the market…

» Latest Print Issues Online

The Hound

Leaky waka

OPINION: Was the ASB Economic Weekly throwing shade on Reserve Bank governor Adrian Orr when reporting on his speech in…

Know-it-alls

OPINION: A reader recently had a shot at the various armchair critics that she judged to be more than a…

» Connect with Rural News

» eNewsletter

Subscribe to our weekly newsletter