Go Big Red…from space
Mechanical shoot thinning in Concord vineyards is a way to adjust vine shoot density and crop level and improve fruit quality. Shoot density, however, varies across vineyard blocks so a “one size fits all” shoot thinning management plan would over thin some vines and under thin other vines. Variable rate shoot thinning would be a useful tool in hitting desirable shoot counts and fruit quality across entire vineyard blocks. At the Cornell Lake Erie Research and Extension Lab, we have developed a method to map early season shoot density with NDVI sensors, create spatial shoot thinning management maps, and apply variable rate mechanical shoot thinning.
In 2019 and 2020, we are testing and demonstrating this precision viticulture technology by creating a large Cornell “C” in one of our Concord vineyard blocks with variable-rate mechanical shoot thinning. This season, the “C” was generated by thinning 30-50% of vine shoots, depending on initial shoot density, when the shoots were 3-5” long.
The images show the result of our VR shoot thinning on canopy NDVI just after bloom in 2020. The bottom NDVI is from ground based proximal NDVI sensing with CropCircle sensors and the top NDVI is from new SkySat imagery (~60cm resolution) from Planet (www.planet.com). We will continue to evaluate these sensing technologies throughout the season.
