A bunch of purple grapes on the vine with yellow and green leaves

CLEREL Research Highlights

Cutting edge expertise for the grape industry

Innovation and Cornell expertise for the grape industries of Western New York and Pennsylvania converge at our CLEREL location. We integrate practical vineyard knowledge and technology to help growers achieve more efficient, healthy and high quality yields year after year. Some of our most notable research examines:

  • Viticulture
  • Vineyard nutrition
  • Vineyard mechanization
  • Vine precision agriculture
  • Spatial data processing

Focus on the Efficient Vineyard Project

It’s not just a project. It’s our mission at CLEREL.

Funded through the USDA-NIFA-Specialty Crop Research Initiative, the Efficient Vineyard Project is a national effort to advance the use of precision viticulture in wine, juice and table grape production. The disciplines of engineering, precision agriculture, viticulture and economics come together to measure vineyard soil, canopy and crop characteristics, model spatial data for viticulture information and manage vineyard crop load through variable-rate machine applications.

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Play EfficientVineyard Summary Video 2020

Efficient vineyard approach

Through the Efficient Vineyard Project, we help growers utilize a measure, model, manage approach in their vineyards to get the best results.

Measure

Use agricultural sensors to collect data on vineyard soils, canopy development, crop size and fruit.

Model

Integrate sensor data and directed field measurements into useful viticulture information for vineyard managers quality.

Manage

Develop variable-rate vineyard prescription maps to improve yield and quality, lower production costs, and conserve labor and environmental resources.

Vineyard nutrition

Like most plants, proper nutrient uptake is critical to vine health and fruit yield. But identifying deficiencies in nitrogen, potassium, magnesium and other key nutrients is a challenging, labor-intensive and expensive process for vineyard managers. It requires manually collecting leaves during the growing season and mailing the samples to a lab for analysis. Our experts are developing high-resolution sensors to help vineyard growers identify nutrient deficiencies.

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