RESEARCH FOCUS
Automating Measurements of Canopy and Fruit to Map Crop Load in Commercial Vineyards (pdf)
Crop load - the ratio of exposed leaf area to fruit - is a key measure of vine performance. A collaborative project is using tractor-mounted imaging systems to develop crop load maps capturing variability in vine size and cropping levels. 

FACULTY FOCUS
5 Questions for Miguel Gomez
Miguel Gomez, assistant professor of horticultural marketing since 2008, has initiated several projects with New York's grape and wine industry as part of a broader program to enhance market opportunities for horticultural products.

INDUSTRY FOCUS
Endowment Funding Spurs Innovation in Grape and Wine Research  at Cornell
Funding from industry and private donors is fueling short-term projects that are focused, pro-active, and innovative.

GRAPES 101
Conversion Factors: From Vineyard to Bottle
How many grapes does it take to produce a glass of wine? Cases per ton? Bottles per acre? Hectoliters per hectare? Chris Gerling explores the ins and outs of conversion factors.

 BRIEFS

• Simple Test (with Alka-Seltzer) Developed to Measure Sulfur in Juice and Wine
  Graduate student Misha Kwasniewski, working with wine chemist Gavin Sacks and plant pathologist Wayne Wilcox, has developed a simple test that wineries can use to measure elemental sulfur in juice and wine.
• Cornell Researchers Awarded $2 Million to Streamline Breeding of Next Generation Grapes
  Bruce Reisch leads team of 25 scientists from ten institutions to develop DNA marker and trait screening to aid grape breeding programs. 
• Multistate "Northern Grapes Project" to focus on New Cold-Hardy Wine Grapes in the Upper Midwest and Northeast
  New multistate project brings together research and outreach from Nebraska to Massachusetts on growing, vinifying, and marketing wines made from new cold-climate grape varieties.
• Cooperative Agricultural Pest Survey Delivers Good News about Invasive Moths
  Traps and lures deployed at 40 locations across New York as part of the New York State Department of Agriculture and Markets' Cooperative Agricultural Pest Survey (CAPS) detected no exotic, invasive moths.
  
• Economists Help Cool-Climate Wine Regions Make Their Mark
  Miguel Gómez, assistant professor at the Charles H. Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management, is working to identify the keys to success for the newest cool-climate wine regions in the eastern United States.

RESEARCH IN PLAIN ENGLISH

• Comparison of odor-active compounds in grapes and eines from Vitis vinifera and non-foxy American grape species (pdf)
  Just what is "hybrid" aroma? Cornell chemists have identified five key odor-active compounds in non-vinifera wines.
• Crop load adjustment in 'Seyval blanc': Impacts on yield components, fruit composition, consumer wine preferences, and economics of production (pdf)
  Hybrid wine producer 'Seyval Blanc' has a tendency to overcrop. This project examined the effects of cluster thinning and shoot thinning on yield, fruit quality, consumer preference and the economics of production.
• Natural infection of Run1-positive vines by naïve genotypes of Erysiphe necator (pdf)
  It's a cautionary tale for the powerhouse powdery mildew resistance gene Run1. In a test in New York, vines with the gene thrived without fungicides, but they were not immune to the diverse powdery mildew strains in the fungus's home turf.