scientists from NASA Ames Research
Center have teamed with robert mondavi
winery and several universities to study
a privilege that may cause many of the
finest wine growing regions in
california over up
a tiny root parasite called phallic
sarah has devastated popular varieties
of grapes in the Napa Valley causing a
serious decline in food production vegan
sex feed on healthy plant roots exposing
them to disease and stress ultimately
the plants living and down for most
farmers early detection is nearly
impossible because by the time the
visual symptoms appear the vines are
severely affected and will die in one to
three years using airborne scanners and
sophisticated remote sensing techniques
NASA is developing new ways to spot the
provider for crops decline and the
growers can necessary to meet the
premier's with for luxor of resistant
rootstocks till freeze manages the
project for robert mondavi vineyards
remote sensing allows the detection of
stress before we can ever see it with
the naked eye and that gives us a
glimpse into the future so that we can
do a better job of planning for
eventualities of the loss of those vines
this is the Napa Valley home to
America's most prestigious wine
produced the fine Chardonnay Pinot Noirs
and Cabernet Sauvignon that have helped
with the California wine industry on the
International lab but lurking beneath
the surface of these green fields at
tiny parasites called for luck Sarah
that threatened the very roots of a six
billion dollar industry entomologist
Jeff brunette the place where it's
feeding is a wounded area and fungus or
bacteria can get into that and cause an
infection which will eventually kill
that portion of the route infrared
aerial photography taken over a
five-year period reveals forelock
Sarah's devastating effects dead areas
show up gray imagery like this helps
farmers see current damage but it
doesn't provide enough information for
future planning growers need better
tools so there's where comes NASA
because the very sophisticated
technology remote sensing allows the
detection of stress before we can ever
see it with the naked eye and that gives
us a glimpse into the future so that we
can do a better job of planning for
eventualities of the loss of those bonds
Phil freeze manages the Velox our
project for robert mondavi winery bob
mondavi has always thought to the future
in this case we looked up into the sky
we look for the technology we look
beyond the horizon they look to space
NASA scientists at nearby Ames Research
Center have been developing remote
sensing technology to study the Earth's
surface using aircraft and satellites
for the last ten years nASA has been
trying to get remote sensing into more
commercial uses to develop more industry
partnerships NASA's Jones salud heads
the grapes 113 and boots participants
from Ames mondavi winery in California
Davis and Chicago universities we called
up about four wineries last fall and met
with about four different groups and
explain to them what we wanted to try to
do and mondavi was the one who said
we're your guys we want to do that same
thing this is where all the flock sir is
1 1 2 & 3 have visual signs and it's in
the ground four five and six have no
visual signs on elites but it is in the
ground and seven eight and nine are
totally healthy and there's nothing in
the ground an 11-acre test site is
blocked in two sections with healthy
moderate and severely infested vines
handheld instruments are used to measure
chlorophyll leverage which are a
barometer on the place narc
right now if you look at a leaf for many
of those three categories they look the
same to our eyes but we're going to take
them back into the lab at Ames and do
spectral analysis and also chemical
analysis to see how those leaves
different the second sample for love
field and laboratory data provides a
baseline for each level of infestation
scientists estimate chlorophyll levels
and use an airborne scanner together
thousands of plants like infrared photos
the resulting images indicate where the
vines are distrustful of damages are
also burner roars of with the bugs that
crispy did acquire a time at the polacks
for pattern seems to be going kind of in
a north-south direction the resolution
is so much better about the contrast the
ability to see the areas that are
already affected by flora it just jump
out at you even more so monitoring
infestation is one thing but doing
something about it is another we don't
have any chemical agents that will cure
our problem and prevent philosopher in
Napa Valley fortunately nurseries are
growing roots which are resistant to the
lots are many of the popular great
plants like Chardonnay Pinot Noir would
easily fall prey to the underground
pests if they were growing on their own
rules good nurs get around this problem
by having nurseries graft or splice
resistant stocks to the fruit bearing
portion of the plan what we've chosen to
do here at Robert Mondavi vineyards is
to remove those vines that are affected
with filagra go back in and we plant
these new root stocks that are tolerant
to any philosophy that might be in the
soil the cost of replanting at mondavi
vineyards alone could run to 20 million
that's why it's so critical but vintners
know where and when philosopher will
strike before replanting rather than
having a feeling that it's really
spreading will be able to say look it's
spread thirty percent over this past
year in this direction the NASA
partnership with MonaVie and
universities at Davis and Chico was
working very well right they couldn't
use the digital images sooner the
mondavi team members were looking at the
imagery so we made a decision to rip out
half this field from looking at this
imagery we should ripped out
three-quarters of it because part of
what we left is useless and if they had
gone ahead and ripped out more of the
field and replanted sooner they'd have a
crop a lot sooner this new technique
we'll have a long
impact farm
the results of this three-year NASA
project will be shared with wine growers
throughout the state will get this
information developed and then take it
out and let everyone else use it because
no one survives in this industry alone
we all survive together umbria field
management developed from the NASA
research efforts may also improve wine
quality and take Regan satisfying
worldwide bring
you