increase font size
A Cropsy bud heat map
A New Zealand startup is providing growers with vital information for daily operations and long-term vineyard management, using a unique and scalable AI vine scanner that gives a vine-specific view of disease, pruning, land productivity and yields. Forty Cropsy systems have been deployed throughout New Zealand, the United States and France, with more than 20 million vine scans conducted in the past 12 months.
One of Cropsy’s four co-founders, Leila Deljkovic, says the scanner covers extensive vineyard areas that scouting simply cannot. “The scanner mounts to any vehicle that drives through the vineyard regularly, so compared to boots-on-the-ground, Cropsy provides richer and fresher data for precision vineyard management at scale. Those decision-ready insights are delivered before your first coffee of the day.”
Cropsy uses its innovative AI scanning technology to pinpoint every vine – including missing or dead vines, mildew infection, bunch, cane, spur, and bud in real time, as the vehicle passes through the vineyard. In operation, Cropsy scanners can analyse up to 8,000 vines an hour, with the insights available in as little as 30 minutes, though typically by the next morning.
The result is a ‘digital twin’ of the vineyard, delivered using comprehensive reports, dashboards, maps, tables, or printouts to share with in-field workers. Subsequent passes build a vine-by-vine history of the vineyard to inform how things are changing.
Cropsy’s latest commercial traction has proven key use cases in vineyards, particularly around labour availability challenges, by improving pruning quality and ensuring adherence to the pruning specifications with rapid feedback to workers. The data also helps to direct labour to the right spots for mildew management, escalating treatment before
an outbreak forms.
The system also provides early warnings of mildew infections, allowing a targeted approach to treatment decisions, alongside providing inflorescence and cluster counts to improve yield forecasts, while also identifying underperforming or dying plants in the vineyard. It also allows precision replanting of new vines to replace failed plants.
Some of the most used features on the Cropsy platform include mildew evidence photos, where growers can view proof of the scanner detections from their desktop, and block-level pruning statistics, which highlight over or under-pruned rows. The company also plans to develop support for new trellis and pruning styles to reach more growers around the world, and expects to release a much-anticipated grapevine trunk disease feature this spring.
In 2024, extensive, live in-vineyard demos took place across New Zealand and this year have been enthusiastically welcomed in the US market. Recently, Cropsy signed up its first service provider – Flowerday Contracting in Marlborough – which targets small and medium sized growers. The Marlborough Grape Growers Co-operative is using Cropsy across all its member growers, working with Flowerday Contracting to undertake the scanning. Co-op growers all have their own access to the Cropsy platform for their blocks.
cropsy.tech
Global tyre manufacturer Michelin has extended its agricultural trailer tyre range, with the introduction of its new WorkxBib series, designed for tipping trailers, slurry tankers and manure spreaders.
Following the record-breaking success of its hydrogen-powered Hydromax, JCB is ramping up its investment in the business, key to the first major change at the executive level of the business, with George Bamford stepping up to the post of joint chairman, alongside his father Lord Bamford.
During calf rearing, logistics can play an important role in getting the job done quickly and efficiently.
Massey Ferguson has announced a strategic supply partnership with International Tractors Limited (ITL), a manufacturer of low-horsepower and compact tractors, with recognised brands such as Sonalika and Sollis, to expand its portfolio with a new tractor range.
With the biannual Italian EIMA machinery Expo less than a month away, Case IH has taken out a Technical Evolution award for the Advanced Vehicle Suspension system available on its Optum 360–440 series tractors.
The Advanced Vehicle Suspension system, available on Optum 360, 390, and 440 models, responds to changing conditions, automatically adjusting how the suspension reacts to absorbs shocks and controlling vehicle movement.
In operation, sensors monitor the vibrations transmitted from the tractor chassis to the operator cabin, allowing the system to adjust suspension damping in real time. The control system incorporates key priorities, such as comfort at lower speeds and stability as speed increases, while also reacting to factors such as lower tyre pressures, where the tyres absorb more of the initial shock.
Case IH said as suspension requirements change throughout the working day, as tractors move between the paddock and road transport, the system manages suspension response in the background as tasks, speeds and conditions change, leaving the operator without the need to make manual adjustments.
Richard Hollins, Optum series tractors global product manager, said: “Pioneering technology must earn its place in the working day. Farmers and contractors will judge an investment by what it delivers, including manageable ownership costs, dependable up-time and the versatility to tackle different jobs. With AVS, we are putting intelligent control to work for comfort and stability, without giving the operator another setting to manage.”
Organised by FederUnacoma, the Italian Agricultural Machinery Manufacturers Federation, the contest has been part of EIMA since 1986, with the Technical Evolution distinction awarded to products that introduce original improvements to solutions already manufactured or patented.
www.caseih.com
OPINION: As I approach three months in my role as New Zealand Winegrowers Chief Executive, one message has come through…
OPINION: The United States wine market has changed forever, and companies cannot use same old playbook, said Erin Kirschenmann at…
One of Australia's most decorated winemakers will speak at the Aotearoa New Zealand Chardonnay Symposium in Hawke's Bay this September.
The third Aotearoa New Zealand Chardonnay Symposium will be underway in Hastings, Hawke's Bay, on 17-18 September.
Vintage 2026 yielded excellent fruit for most New Zealand wine regions.
