Sniffing out pesky vineyard threats
My buddy Vindu yesterday passed along this video tidbit from the Wall Street Journal Online:
Over the past 13 years, mealybugs have spread north from Southern California into the Napa-Sonoma wine country, forcing vintners to spend as much as $30 million a year trying to eradicate them. But the bugs are notoriously difficult to pin down; hundreds cram together to hide under bark and roots.
It’s amazing, then, that instead of using pesticides to ward off the mealybug threat, wineries are hiring trained dogs, such as Ros in this video, to sniff out the pesky critters. The vineyard help can then snip off the infested branch, and the grapes stay free of unwanted poisons.
[Editor's note: the powers that be at brightcove.com have removed this video from their server.]
Enjoy this video, which is just over a minute and a half long. Woof-Woof!
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March 11th, 2009 11:11
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