Washington State Grape Society speakers discuss implementing sensor-based irrigation.
Jake Schrader, U.S. Department of Agriculture precision viticulture researcher in Prosser, Washington, said that although sensors have improved, the hardware is just one piece of the management puzzle.
“It’s hard to make (sensors) effective immediately,” he said.
Before taking his new USDA position, Schrader managed the Smart Vineyard, a technology testing ground at Washington State University’s Irrigated Agriculture Research and Extension Center in Prosser. In 2024, a drought year, upstream water restrictions prevented the university from fully automating the vineyard’s irrigation system, he said.
Also, a vineyard may lack cellular service or another form of wireless communication for all the smart tools to communicate, he said. Some growers are trying LoRa networks. Short for long range, the approach enables sensors, smart valves and other tools to connect across long distances, up to 5 miles, but handle only small bits of data at a time.
