‘This Will Transform What We’re Able To Do’: NASA Technology May Give the Wine Industry a Huge Break By Saving Billions Of Grape Vines — Here’s How

Red vine leaves during harvest. (Photo: Oliver Berg/picture-alliance/dpa/AP Images)

Amid inflation, climate change, wildfires and market demands, winemakers deserve a break — and NASA technology might be able to make their lives a little easier. On Monday, KCRA3 reported on a major breakthrough. Scientists with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Cornell University have proved that they could detect a deadly vine disease using a technique called image spectroscopy.

This technique involves using artificial intelligence modeling and a plane outfitted with a distinctive sensor. This technology works similarly to a high-powered camera that can see colors we can’t.

“Think about the camera that you have in your iPhone or Android in your pocket. It has a camera that sees in red, green and blue,” NASA JPL Research Tech Ryan Pavlick told the news outlet. “Our instrument has a sensor that can break up light into hundreds of colors.”

Some of these colors are not visible to the naked eye. These specific colors, caught with image spectroscopy, can point to early signs of the Grapevine Leafroll virus.

Grapevine Leafroll Virus is a vector-borne virus that targets grape vines and has emerged as one of the more deadly vine diseases within the past decade, according to The National Library of Medicine.

The disease dramatically reduces yield by up to 40% and shortens the life of a vineyard. According to the Cornell Chronicle, there is no cure for the disease other than removing vines, which can cost growers up to tens of thousands of dollars per hectare.

The disease is very difficult to detect and must be diagnosed by trained specialists. It can remain undetected until it’s too late and has severe economic consequences. If this new technology is able to easily detect the disease, it would make it much easier for winemakers to promptly identify and remove the contaminated vines.

When the scientists gathered the data after surveying 11,000 acres of vines in Lodi, they found the technology had an 87% accuracy rate.

“This will transform what we’ve been able to do from just flying over vineyards in Lodi to being able to map every vineyard in the United States every 16 days,” Pavlick concluded.

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