Though winemaking is a centuries-old traditional art form, the wine industry is making a next-gen shift by employing the use of artificial intelligence. Harnessing the power of AI, winemakers are now using autonomous tractors, mapping vineyards, monitoring water use, analyzing crop health, and more.
Third-generation farmer Tom Gamble is employing artificial intelligence-backed tractors at his Napa Valley vineyard. The tractor’s AI sensor maps the vineyard, and as it learns each row, the tractor will know where to go while running autonomously. The machine’s AI collects and processes data to help Gamble make more well-informed crop decisions — what he calls “precision farming.”
“It’s not going to completely replace the human element of putting your boot into the vineyard, and that’s one of my favorite things to do,” he said. “But it’s going to be able to allow you to work more smartly, more intelligently, and, in the end, make better decisions under less fatigue.”
Gamble has also stated that autonomous tractors could help lower fuel use, thus reducing pollution. New agricultural tech using AI can help farmers by monitoring water use and helping determine when and where to use products such as fertilizers and pesticides to reduce waste. AI-backed tractors and irrigation systems can also analyze soil or vines to provide crop health data and predict the season’s yield.
According to Sean Sundberg, business integration manager at John Deere, the company uses “Smart Apply” technology on tractors, which helps growers apply material for crop retention by using sensors and algorithms to sense foliage on grape canopies. This allows the technology to spray only where there are grapes or leaves to minimize waste.
Tyler Klick, partner at Redwood Empire Vineyard Management, said his company has started automating irrigation valves at the vineyards it helps manage. The valves send an alert when there is a leak and automatically shut off if they notice an “excessive” water flow rate.
“That valve is actually starting to learn typical water use,” Klick said. “It’ll learn how much water is used before the production starts to fall off.”
An assistant professor who leads the Plant AI and Biophysics Lab at UC Davis, Mason Earles, stated that AI can be used to help growers determine whether a virus is affecting their plants, identify the virus, and give the grower advice on whether they should rip crops out immediately. This is particularly helpful for winemakers because viruses can destroy entire vineyards, and the replanting process can take at least five years.
Earles, who is also co-founder of the AI-powered farm management platform Scout, said his company uses AI to process thousands of images in hours and extract data quickly. The platform then counts and measures the grape clusters to forecast the yield.
“Predicting what yields you’re going to have at the end of the season, no one is that good at it right now,” he said. “But it’s really important because it determines how much labor contract you’re going to need and the supplies you’ll need for making wine.”
