Last week, at the Auction of Washington Wines in Woodinville, WA, Pollen Systems Corporation unveiled Pollen Scout, a drone-aided managed service and self-service portal that helps farms and vineyards monitor crop growth, discover irrigation issues, and investigate pests and diseases.
Commercially certified Drone Technologists visit subscribing farms and vineyard sites weekly and use drones to capture incredibly detailed pictures and spectral images that can help farmers uncover and address common issues rapidly: improving crop yield and quality.
This year Pollen Systems began flying drones regularly over established and well-respected properties in the Red Mountain A.V.A. and Walla Walla A.V.A in Washington and Oregon, including Hedges Family Vineyard, Skyfall Vineyard, Red Mountain Vineyard, and Seven Hills Vineyard.
“It’s encouraging to see young companies like Pollen Systems propose new technologies and solutions to vineyards and farms in Eastern Washington and Oregon,” said Norm McKibben, Managing Partner, Pepper Bridge Winery.
Pollen Systems chose the Woodinville, WA annual Auction of Washington Wines as the perfect place to launch the company and to communicate with potential customers.
“We’re delighted to launch the company by being a sponsor of the Auction of Washington Wines, a charitable event benefitting the wine industry and local community. Helping out is core to our beliefs and values as we support our customers,” said Keith McCall, Founder and CEO of Pollen Systems Corporation. “As a young company, it’s exciting to see the rapid adoption of our solutions and we look forward to expanding our services to other crops and regions in 2019.”
Results have been extremely positive and valuable to early adopters.
“We’ve been actively using the images Pollen Systems provides to identify both stressed and high vigor areas in our vineyard,” said James Bukovinsky, Vineyard Manager at Hedges Family Estate Vineyard. “Having the Pollen team show up weekly gives us the ability to adjust irrigation or to find outbreaks of pests and disease more rapidly throughout the season.”
The market for Pollen’s services is massive. According to the international organization OIV (Organisation Internationale de la Vigne et du Vin), there are nearly 20 million acres of planted vines worldwide. But Pollen Scout is not only applicable to vines, but a wide variety of crops including hops, cherries and other stone fruit, raspberries and blueberries, and wheat.
“Pollen Systems’ unique drone-enabled managed services can support the million acres of planted vineyards in the United States,” said Greg Lill, Co-Founder and President Emeritus of DeLille Cellars. “Technology and Data, properly applied, will help Winemakers produce even better Washington wines in the future.”
Source: Press Release