Earth and Environmental Sciences Area Logo Earth and Environmental Sciences Area Logo
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Logo
Menu
  • About Us
    • Contact Us
    • Organizational Charts
    • Virtual Tours
    • EESA Strategic Vision
  • Our People
    • A-Z People
    • Alumni Network
    • Area Offices
    • Committees
    • Directors
    • IDEA Working Group
    • Paul A. Witherspoon
    • Postdocs & Early Careers
    • Search by Expertise
  • Careers & Opportunities
    • Careers
    • Intern Pilot w/CSUEB
    • Mentorship Program
    • Recognition & Funding Opps
    • EESA Mini Grants
    • S&E Metrics for Performance and Promotion
    • Student Opportunities
    • Supervisor EnRichment (SupER) Program
    • Promotion Metrics (Scientific)
  • Research
    • Area-Wide Program Domain
      • Earth AI & Data
    • Our Divisions
    • Climate & Ecosystem Sciences Division
      • Environmental & Biological Systems Science
        • Programs
        • Environmental Remediation & Water Resources
        • Ecosystems Biology Program
        • Bioenergy
      • Biosphere-Atmosphere Interactions
        • Programs
        • Climate Modeling
        • Atmospheric System Research
        • Terrestrial Ecosystem Science
      • Climate & Atmosphere Processes
        • Programs
        • Climate Modeling
        • Atmospheric System Research
      • Earth Systems & Society
        • Programs
        • Climate Modeling
    • Energy Geosciences Division
      • Discovery Geosciences
        • Programs
        • Basic Energy Sciences (BES) Geophysics
        • Basic Energy Sciences (BES) Geochemistry
        • Basic Energy Sciences (BES) Isotope
      • Energy Resources and Carbon Management
        • Programs
        • Carbon Removal & Mineralization Program
        • Carbon Storage Program
        • Geothermal Systems
        • Hydrocarbon Science
        • Nuclear Energy & Waste
      • Resilient Energy, Water & Infrastructure
        • Programs
        • Water-Energy
        • Critical Infrastructure
        • Environmental Resilience
        • Grid-Scale Subsurface Energy Storage
        • National Alliance for Water Innovation (NAWI)
    • Projects
    • Research at a Glance
    • Publication Lists
    • Centers and Resources
    • Technologies & National User Programs
  • Departments
    • Climate Sciences
    • Ecology
    • Geochemistry
    • Geophysics
    • Hydrogeology
    • Operations
  • News & Events
    • News
    • Events
    • Earth & Environment Newsletter
  • Intranet
  • Safety
    • EESA Safety
  • FoW
  • Search

  • all
  • people
  • events
  • posts
  • pages
  • projects
  • publications

Precision Agriculture/Viticulture Research

Susan Hubbard

Susan S. Hubbard - MS Geophysics, PhD Engineering, UC Berkeley (1999) and Professional Certificate in Winemaking and Viticulture UC Davis (2009).

The majority of Susan’s precision agriculture research has focused on vineyards. The ability to optimize winegrape production necessitates an understanding of the factors that influence their spatial and temporal variability, including soils, climate, plants and management practices. While a significant fraction of precision viticulture has focused on investigating the link between winegrape parameters and above-ground factors (such as the training, cultivation, and harvest timing of the grapes), soil properties, which control water drainage, are critically important to winegrape quality. However, characterizing soils using traditional methods (such as by digging backhoe pits or collecting point measurements) has challenges, as these methods are laborious, invasive, and provide information at a single point in time/space only. Through using ground and airborne based geophysical methods, together with sparse point information, we strive to characterize the variability of soil and grapevine variability, and their co-variability, as well as to understand how soil hydrochemical properties influence grapevine behavior. Our work includes laboratory and field investigations as well as new sensing and data fusion approaches. Our objective is to develop tractable approaches that honor the natural variability of the ecosystem that can be used to guide vineyard management decisions, including planting and remediation.

Susan Hubbard’s Precision Agriculture Publications

Environmental Geophysics Research in other Agricultural Systems

Precision Viticulture Press Releases

  • Hubbard’s research used to guide vineyard development and optimized viticulture at Mila Family Vineyards
  • Wine Enthusiast (‘Water into Wine’, May 2009)
  • CNN “Next@CNN” Nov. 1, 2003: CNN Video Clip
  • Wine Business Monthly (Volume X, No. 11, p. 35, Nov. 2003)
  • USDA NRI Highlight (2006)
  • California Agriculture (Vol. 58, Number 1, Jan. 2004)
  • The Economist: Wine Making and Radar – A penetrating result (Dec. 18, 2003)
  • Der Spiegel (Dec. 2003, Germany)
  • Science News: Global Vineyard-Can technology take on warming climate?  (May 29, 2004)
  • California Farmer Magazine (Dec., 2003)
  • Vitaviniccultura (Oct. 2003, Chili)
  • The Daily Cal
  • Corriere (Italy)
  • ASA/CSSA/SSSA and VZJ
  • Today at Berkeley Lab – Radar used to grow better wine grapes (Oct. 28, 2003)
  • Fall AGU04 Media Field Trip: Geophysics of Winemaking TECH TV (Nov. 18, 2003)
  • Our People
    • Area Offices
    • Committees
    • Directors
    • Organizational Charts
    • Postdocs
    • Staff Only
    • Search by Expertise
  • Departments
    • Climate Sciences
    • Ecology
    • Geochemistry
    • Geophysics
    • Hydrogeology
  • Research
    • Climate & Ecosystem Sciences Division
    • Energy Geosciences Division
    • Program Domains
      • Programs
    • Projects
  • Contact
    • 510 486 6455
    • eesawebmaster@lbl.gov
    • Our Identity

Earth and Environmental Sciences Area Logo DOE Earth and Environmental Sciences Area Logo UC

A U.S. Department of Energy National Laboratory Managed by the University of California

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory · Earth and Environmental Sciences Area · Privacy & Security Notice