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U of M Team Searches for New Wine Grape That Can Survive the Coldest Minnesota Winter
February 20, 2025 | KARE11.com
The University of Minnesota has developed several commercially successful cold-hardy grape varieties, including the red grape Marquette and, most recently, Clarion, a white. Soon Li Teh, director of the university’s grape breeding program, and enologist Drew Horton are currently evaluating experimental selections, searching for the next hit that’s cold-hardy, disease-resistant and makes quality wine. “It’s a tall order to find a grape that consumers want to drink and growers want to grow,” KARE11 reports.
Vandals Destroy Experimental AET Vines in Northern Italy
February 20, 2025 | Decanter
Five Chardonnay vines created using gene-editing (or “assisted evolution technology”) to resist downy mildew and planted in a University of Verona research vineyard were vandalized last week. It is believed the perpetrators may have been targeting GMOs, as the acronym appears on a sign at the site. The project received government funding and the sign is required by law. “Although the notice is misleading, we cannot change it,” said Mario Pezzotti, the professor overseeing project.
Mechanizing Your Vineyard from the Start with Dr. Matthew Fidelibus & Alan Thibault
February 18, 2025 | Vineyard Underground Podcast
“There’s more and more mechanization going on, even in hard-to-mechanize crops like table grapes,” says UCANR’s Matt Fidelibus, referencing recent studies showing 30% savings in pre-pruning for fresh-market grapes. In wine grapes, the most mechanized of the grape commodities, “people are seeing a 50%, even up to 80% reduction in pruning costs with mechanical pruning, he says. But for best results, it’s important to build mechanization into vineyard design.
Box Sampling: A New Spatial Sampling Method for Grapevine Macronutrients Using Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2 Satellite Images
February 17, 2025 | Precision Agriculture
Observing that the random sampling typically recommended for nutrient management is often skipped due to the time, distance and number of samples needed, the HiRes Vineyard Nutrition project team sought a better way. They developed the “box sampling” method for monitoring grapevine nutrition at the vineyard block level. It involves collecting samples from a square-grid area intersecting three stratified variability zones determined based on NDVI data from satellite images. Compared to random sampling, box sampling reduced sampling distance or time by 75% and accurately represents the variability in vine nutrition values across whole blocks. It will soon be made available through the My Efficient Vineyard (MyEV) platform.
An AI Revolution Is Happening in Ag Tech
February 13, 2025 | Farm Progress
Today’s ag tech often relies on energy-hungry graphic processing units (GPUs) originally designed for gaming, not in-field real-time processing. Purpose-built chips created for ag could make a huge difference. “For example, a robotic laser weeder employs about 24 GPUs and takes about 2.6 weeks to weed 450 acres of farmland. With AI inference chips, it uses 90% less power and finishes the job in just four days,” Farm Progress reports.
Making an Estate Winery Work in Northern Ohio
February 11, 2025 | Good Fruit Grower
Sometimes, it’s the old tried-and-true practices that make all the difference. The first and second years that Joe and Kristi Juniper took over as operating partners of Ohio’s Vermilion Valley Vineyards, polar vortexes killed all their buds. “But thanks to an investment in risk mitigation—also known as hilling—their vines survived,” Good Fruit Grower reports. “Most Ohio vineyards had by then abandoned the laborious and expensive practice of mounding soil around graft unions.” The Junipers bucked the trend and now co-own one of the largest vineyards in the state. Joe is an NGRA Board member.
A Vineyard Research Site to Study Soil Health
February 6, 2025 | Sustainable Winegrowing with Vineyard Team
Devin Rippner, Research Viticulture Soil Scientist with USDA-ARS, and his colleagues at the WSU-IAREC are developing a research vineyard to study soil health building practices. There, they’re testing the impact on vineyard soil of management strategies like adjusting irrigation to correct for salt buildup, mowing for weed management, applying compost and synthetic fertilizers, and cover cropping. The team is tracking the cost of each practice and will ultimately evaluate wine quality.
Oldest Grapes of the Western Hemisphere Discovered
February 5, 2025 | Wein.Plus
The newly discovered fossilized seeds of nine grape varieties are believed to be the ancestors of grapes from the Vitis species grown today in the Western Hemisphere. The seeds, found in Panama, Colombia and Peru, are likely the remains of grapes that emerged 20 to 60 million years ago in the tropical regions of South America and the Caribbean. The oldest known fossil grape seeds come from India and have been dated to be 66 million years old.
Punxsutawney Phil Makes His Groundhog Day Winter Prediction
February 2, 2025 | New York Post
On Groundhog Day, February 2, famous groundhog Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow when he emerged from his den in western Pennsylvania, meaning six more weeks of winter, according to the American folklore. But a NOAA study shows that “the furry prognosticator has only accurately predicted the change in seasons about 35% of the time over the past 20 years,” says the New York Post.
New Survey Sheds Light on AI Use in the Wine Industry
February 1, 2025 | Wine Business Monthly
In a survey by Wine Market Council and Wine Business Monthly, less than 15% of wine industry respondents said they’re using AI to help manage their vineyards. Among those who do use AI-powered technologies like sensors (including optical sorters and vine health threats), robots or aerial platforms (drones or planes), 34% reported that it had increased operational efficiency, 24% said it reduced costs and 26% said improved the quality of their grapes. Larger (50+) acre vineyards are more likely to use AI, particularly for aerial imaging.
FRAC 11 Decision Tree Updated for Disease Management
February 2025 | FRAME Networks
Your samples came back from the lab as “mixed” for fungicide sensitivity. Now what? The FRAME Networks fungicide resistance team has updated its document, “Interpreting FRAC 11 (QoI) Fungicide Test Results – Decision Tree for Disease Management,” for 2025. Navigate to the link and click the fifth bullet on the “Grower Information” page.
Shifts in Water Use in Grapevine Due to an Invasive Sap-Feeding Planthopper Persist Following Insect Removal
February 2025 | Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment
New research co-led by Penn State and Virginia Tech shows that prolonged feeding by high populations of spotted lanternfly can lower grapevine water use—even after the bugs have been removed. “This is an increasingly important consideration as SLF continues to expand its range throughout the U.S. to drier, more arid regions where grape production utilizes irrigation, and where management efforts for SLF populations may need to consider its effects on both plant carbon and water resources,” they write.
Regenerative Viticulture and Climate Change Resilience
January 28, 2025 | OENO One
In this literature review led by the UK’s National Institute of Agricultural Botany, researchers found studies supporting regenerative viticulture’s potential to improve soil and vineyard ecology and biodiversity, and water holding capacity, sequester carbon and cool land. “There is less consensus,” they write, “regarding the impact of RV approaches on grape yield, wine quality and greenhouse gas emissions.” They add that “impacts of whole vineyard systems change…is a complex area that has not yet been fully addressed.”
The Science of Old Vines
January 27, 2025 | SevenFiftyDaily
What are old vines and are they inherently better than newer plantings? The OIV declared last year that “old vines” must be at least 35 years old. California’s Historic Vineyard Society “defines old vineyards as 50 years or older, with at least a third of the vines dating from their initial planting date.” Some old vine proponents, like Stuart Spencer of NGRA member-organization the Lodi Winegrape Commission, point to their epigenetics or mature mychorrhizal networks to suggest they’re more reflective of their unique terroir. Others say they’re more resilient and drought-tolerant, and more efficiently allocate their resources to form a canopy and set a crop. But WSU’s Markus Keller says “there’s no scientific evidence that there’s any change in fruiting or fruit or wine composition as a vine becomes older.”
Late-Season Source Limitation Practices to Cope with Climate Change: Delaying Ripening and Improving Color of Cabernet Sauvignon Grapes and Wine in a Hot and Arid Climate
January 27, 2025 | OENO One
A team of Fresno State grape researchers tested late-season canopy management strategies employed in cooler climates to see if any could effectively slow ripening and maintain yield and quality in Cabernet Sauvignon in the scorching San Joaquin Valley. Shoot topping was the only technique that slowed ripening without compromising yield, but leaf removal and the application of pinoline antitranspirant spray had some effects, as well. This study included undergrad students for a real-world research experience.
400,000 Hectares of Vines Without Synthetic Plant Protection
January 24, 2025 | Wein.Plus
In a project called Vitiguard, French researchers aim to protect 400,000 hectares of vineyards from downy and powdery mildew without using pesticides over the next 10 years. They’re using two commercial plant defense stimulators “to strengthen the natural immunity of the vines to enable cultivation without synthetic plant protection products.” They’re being combined with additional biocontrol and biostimulation products plus a stabilizer to prevent them from washing off and improve distribution on the leaves.
CSU Extension Studying Leafroll Disease in Local Vineyards
January 24, 2025 | The Daily Sentinel
Colorado State University Extension Western Regional Viticulture Specialist Charlotte Oliver recently started testing local vineyards for grapevine leafroll disease. So far, she says about 30% show symptoms. “Within about five to six years you’ll start losing about 20% of (your fruit),” she explained at a VinCO Conference. “Then you start having delayed ripening, delayed sugar accumulation, delayed color.” Luckily, she said, “we have decades of research that can help us get through this problem.”
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