UAS Help California Vineyard Plan Irrigation


DRNK Wines, a vineyard located in Sebastolpol, California, recently had 3D Robotics fly a UAS over its fields. 3D Robotics specializes in piloting systems for smaller UAS, and the vineyard used 3D Robotics’s route-plotting software for mapping out the aircraft’s precise path. In just an hour, it flew over the field snapping pictures, then stiched together the pictures to create a comprehensive map of the vienyard. Looking over the newly created field map, farmer Ryan Kunde noticed two things he expected, and one he didn’t. The top of the hill had darker vines, indictating more water and better soil, than the lower slopes. That variation was expected. Unexpected was a fertile crescent at the bottom of the hill, with darker vines indictating a second especially good growing patch. With that knowledge, Kunde sampled grapes from the crescent, and decided which part of his crop to harvest first.

Source: Popular Science

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