How Pine Ridge Vineyards is Saving Time, Money and Water with Lumo
For Gustavo Aviña, the Viticulture Director at Pine Ridge Vineyards, irrigating manually had always been a pain.
The process took up hours of his team’s time, driving around opening and closing valves, checking for line leaks and clogs. Without automation, his irrigation timing and precision were limited, which impacted crop quality and yield.
He couldn’t irrigate at night, sometimes irrigations would run for an hour or two longer than intended just based on the practicalities of where his team members were and who had time to go close the valves, and he had no good way to tell whether his irrigation systems were delivering the quantities of water he expected.
“I chose Lumo because the installation and the valve operation are very easy.”
After discovering Lumo at a Napa event in 2022, Gustavo had Lumo One smart valves installed at one ranch and within a month he had expanded to a second vineyard based on the early results he was seeing.
“Lumo is helpful for saving time and money, irrigating on time, monitoring water use, and keeping records of our irrigations. The technical support is also amazing. “
He can now irrigate at night, which saves water, and he can control his irrigation systems from anywhere, even while visiting Mexico. He also receives text alerts to confirm his irrigations have started and stopped, and if any issues with his irrigations are detected.
“I think we eliminate between 10 to 14 hours of labor per acre per season.”
The labor savings have been immediate, but are also just the tip of the iceberg.
“With automation, we are able to do more precise irrigations, giving water to the vines when they need it, and only what the vines need, which helps to preserve the quality of the fruit by avoiding dehydration. Consequently, yields could also be a bit higher.”
The irrigation flow rate data he’s now collecting has also been helpful with diagnosing issues with his pressure tanks and pumps. Based on the lower than expected flow rates he was seeing, it became clear that he required a more powerful pump, and he even reviewed the data with his pump company to spec out what improvements were needed.
Lumo's flow data confirmed that Pine Ridge was having issues with one of their pumps
“Growing high quality grapes leads to high quality wines!”
Gustavo is now excited to expand his use of Lumo across all of the ranches he oversees, not just because of the savings on time, labor and energy, but also because of the improvements in crop quality and yield.
“After we started automating irrigation, we produced the best fruit I’ve ever seen. And since we aren’t skipping irrigations anymore, we’ve also improved our yield.”
When irrigation automation is done well, the positive benefits are widespread, bettering both the top and bottom line.
To learn more about how Lumo helps growers save time, money and water, request a demo here or contact us at [email protected]