Taking Flight – Drone Agriculture and the Wine Industry

In my Creating New Ventures in Developing Economies course, we discussed how Aerobotics is using drone and satellite technology to help farmers in South Africa improve their crop yields. Aerobotics is an aerial mapping analytics company specializing in gathering aerial imagery data for use in the agricultural value chain. Our discussion with Christine Wente about the technological advancements in the wine industry, specifically how her family is thinking about these innovations, made me think about my Ventures class and how drones may or may not be taking flight in the wine industry.

So, I did my Googles and came across a few interesting things. The use of drones is rising as the wine industry embraces precision viticulture and data-based decision making.

Colorized images taken by drones alert viticulturists to various levels of health or low health in their vineyard. Data analytics companies VineView and SkySquirrel, for instance, have collaborated on drone-based systems that measure water content in leaves and detect stubborn vine diseases which can be stopped by identifying and removing infected vines. Drones can also spray vineyards with fungicide to prevent fungal diseases that affect grapes, which some would argue is more efficient than hand spraying¹.

But can drones can help wine producers produce better quality wine? Vintner Ryan Kunde, who is the winemaker and co-founder of DRNK Wines, uses drones to exploit variability. He blends grapes from multiple blocks to achieve his desired flavor profile, a complex mix of vigor and maturity.

I’m interested to hear about the new, innovative, and exciting technologies our other speakers are seeing in the industry and to see how those innovations may be applicable in a development context.

¹ Are Flying Vineyard Drones Creating Better Wine?