Is there a hole in your irrigation execution?  Are you glazed and confused by your irrigation system performance?  Are irrigation issues costing you way too much dough?  Do-nut fear, Lumo is here  There are two really important things you need to know.  Lumo's giving away free Krispy Kreme donuts at the Unified Wine Grape Symposium. Booth #1932. Jan 28th 10:00 AM & 2:00 PM and Jan 29th 11:00 AM. While quantities last. Do-nut miss it.  That hole in your execution? That lack of visibility into system performance? Those climbing irrigation costs? Yeah, Lumo can help with those too.  Nail Your Irrigation Plan. Every block. Every time. With Lumo, growers can automate their irrigations from pump to plant, track pressure and flow at a block-level on every irrigation, and get automatic text alerts about leaks, clogs and any other issues that pop up in the field.  The result is precise, efficient, fully automated irrigation execution.  W

“We successfully automated almost every irrigation set last season,” said Andrew Oliver, Vineyard Manager at Antinori. “Lumo’s pump automation is an absolute game changer for our team,” agreed Hunter Emch, Northern Unit Area Manager at Redwood Empire Vineyard Management. REVM and Antinori are two early users of Lumo’s Pump Automation product, a powerful new integration with its smart valve platform that automates irrigation scheduling and execution from end to end. The solution has already been deployed at ranches ranging in size from 60 to 1,300 acres. Real-time, block-level flow and pressure data from Lumo smart valves is used to verify performance, dial in precision, and keep critical infrastructure safe. Over 150 ranches in Napa, Sonoma, the Central Coast, the Okanagan Valley and Washington State are already using Lumo’s precision irrigation system to close their execution gap, increase operational efficiency, and irrigate to plan. In July

Santa Rosa, Calif., August 21st, 2025—Lumo, the leader in precision irrigation technology for specialty crop growers, today announced the launch of Pump Automation, a powerful new integration with its smart valve platform. Select growers on the North and Central Coasts are already using Lumo pump automation to fully automate irrigations from pump to plant on ranches ranging from 60 to 1,300 acres. With block-level irrigation data, advanced safety checks, and verified performance, growers are able to save time and achieve precision across a wider range of irrigation systems and setups than ever before. With Lumo, growers are scheduling irrigations overnight and at off-peak times, without relying on overtime labor or pulling folks away from harvest. Real-time flow and pressure data from Lumo smart valves provides the feedback necessary to dial in precision, optimize which blocks to run at the same time, and minimize damage from dry runs and pressure spikes. “Pump automation i

Imagine you want to put six hours of water on every block at your ranch. Ranch has 20 blocks, system can handle 4 blocks at a time, so you need to run 5 sets. If you’re doing that manually, an irrigator might only be able to run one set a day, especially considering any drive time, so it takes a whole workweek to do the whole ranch. Now, imagine instead, that you could just...  open your phone say you want six hours select all your blocks set a limit on the min and max safe flow rate for your pump add any offset you might want (a buffer to let lines repressurize or a gap to minimize waterhammer, for instance) hit a button and be good to go.  That’s it. That’s all. Those irrigation sets would then run one after another and be done in just over a day, 30 hours or so.  No trips to the ranch. No valves turned by hand. No waiting for a week for the last blocks to receive water. Imagine how much faster you could respond to late season heat events. Imagine h

How do you know if your vineyard blocks are actually receiving the right amount of water? If you’re like most growers today, you have no easy way to verify volumes at a block level because you don’t have the data.  This lack of visibility, along with infrastructure issues and labor constraints, leads to something called The Irrigation Execution Gap—a gap between your planned volumes and the volumes your vines are actually getting in the field.  This gap holds growers back, hurting crop quality and yield while increasing costs.  Join us for this webinar on April 3rd, where Josh Zoland, Senior Program Manager at Lumo, and Hunter Emch, Northern Area Unit Manager at Redwood Empire Vineyard Management, will show you how to:  Use block-level flow data to understand your irrigation system’s performance  Automate your irrigation scheduling and execution to remove labor constraints  Achieve block-level irrigation precision across every ranc

The Australian ‘Black Summer’ of 2019/20, which saw bushfires destroy swathes of vineyard land across the country was a dramatic reminder of the growing challenges facing winemakers around the world. We spoke to leading Australian winemakers and lab technicians to find out how agile decision-making is helping to deal with the consequences of global warming. Offering alarming proof of the escalating effects of climate change, in November 2019 bushfires blazed through New South Wales, scorching more than five million hectares of land following Australia’s hottest and driest year on record. In December 2019, the fires swept through the Adelaide Hills, destroying 650 ha of vines in the region, and wiping out entire vineyards. Making matters worse, the smoke from the fires was far-reaching, rendering vineyard plots from Canberra to the Hunter Valley useless. Ravaging an estimated 24.3 million hectares of land in total and destroying over 3,000 buildings, the September 2019

In Dedication to Bill Hayes - Judge The Press Democrat North Coast Wine Challenge along with its intimate team of judges are saddened by the recent loss of much-loved fellow judge Bill Hayes. Bill was one of the core judges for the past 5 competitions and his expertise, knowledge, experience, and friendliness will be very much missed. Says Daryl Groom Chief Judge “Bill was always top of my list to invite back every year. He had a great palate but more importantly he just got along with everyone. He is a judge you could put on any panel as he loved and appreciated all wines and simply got along with everyone. He was always happy and smiling and at the end of every competition made sure he came and thanked me for having him and how much he enjoyed himself. He was often the last one to leave, always being around and volunteering for any Gold Medal judge offs for Best of Class. He oozed passion, respect, and kindness.                   &

Afternoon Brief, December 21st

Not Much Cheer for Wine Sales This Holiday Season: The post-pandemic slump in wine sales continued into the third quarter of 2023, as consumers remain skittish because of inflation and economic uncertainty. There have not been any clear signs of improvement as we enter the crucial holiday season, as the pace of the decline has been reasonably steady over the past 12 months...