NASA's Airborne Visible/InfraRed Imaging Spectrometer (AVIRIS-NG) developed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory can accurately detect Grapevine Leafroll-associated Virus 3 (GLRaV-3), a virus spread by insects that causes about $3 billion in annual losses to the US wine and grape industry.

 

AVIRIS-NG can detect GLRaV-3 infections up to a year before vines show symptoms by measuring changes in how sunlight interacts with plant tissues. This remote sensing technique can aid ground-based monitoring. In aerial surveys of around 11,000 acres of vineyards in Lodi, California, a major premium wine grape region, the research team used machine learning models to successfully differentiate infected and uninfected grapevines, with the best models achieving 87% accuracy.

 

In summary, NASA's advanced detection technologies and machine learning can enable early diagnosis of grapevine diseases, providing growers up to a year's warning to intervene, which is crucial for sustainable agriculture. The technique has promise for expanded monitoring of crop diseases more broadly.