29 September 2016
New Zealand wine industry to benefit from $6 million in Government research funding
$6 million has been secured to fund the research and development of a new tool to assist New Zealand’s wine industry
with better grape yield forecasting. Science and Innovation Minister Steven Joyce recently announced that the initiative
will be funded by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) 2016 Endeavour Fund.
The five-year programme, which is co-funded by New Zealand Winegrowers, will be led by Lincoln Agritech in partnership
with Lincoln University, Plant and Food Research, University of Canterbury and CSIRO (Australia).
“The new research programme aims to develop a tool to deliver much more accurate yield estimations,” says Dr Simon
Hooker, New Zealand Winegrowers General Manager of Research and Innovation. “This will benefit the industry by
supporting better crop management, smoother processing and market forecasting based on capacity to supply.”
Peter Barrowclough, CEO at Lincoln Agritech, says, “The game-changing innovation will be that growers can accurately
assess differences in yield not only between regions or vineyards, but with new sensor technologies, they will also be
able to assess differences between blocks and rows. Over the long term, site-specific yield prediction will help reduce
costs by enabling better planning both in the vineyard and in market.”
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