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GRAPEGROWER INTERVIEW 32 WINES&VINES March 2018 R andy Heinzen set out to become a computer engineer when he enrolled at California Poly- technic State University in San Luis Obispo. But the Gilroy native, whose family had farmed in California's Salinas Valley for generations, realized that he would never leave his cubicle with that degree. So, he switched to political science, with an eye toward advocacy for the wine industry. When Cal Poly added a minor in enology and viticulture, he signed on to that program, too, graduating in 2000. Viticulture proved to be a good fit for Heinzen, who went to work as a vineyard scout for Scheid Vineyards in Monterey County before studying for a master's degree at the University of Adelaide in South Australia. He then spent about 10 years in the Napa Valley, first as director of vineyard operations at Saintsbury winery, then as a vineyard manager for Beckstoffer Vineyards, with responsibility that included high-end Cabernet vine- yards like To Kalon and Dr. Crane Vineyard. In 2013, Heinzen returned to San Luis Obispo County, joining Vineyard Professional Services in Paso Robles. He acquired the com- pany in May 2017. The company manages 2,500 acres of vineyards, nearly all of it in the Paso Robles area, and consults on an ad- ditional 1,400 acres along the West Coast. VPS provides a range of consulting services, from vineyard planning to financial services to due dili- gence for vineyard buyers. Q What sort of vineyard technology have you in- vested in lately, and is there anything else you're particularly excited about? Randy Heinzen: I appreciate that you used the word "invest- ing" in your question. Many of the technologies we have been purchasing and incorporating into our services have utility immediately, but they also represent a response to developers and engineers that there is demand and need for these types of products, and we are kind of voting with our dollars. Digital imagery has been around for a long time, but hyper-spectral cameras (we use a service from PIC) are a crucial step toward gleaning higher value-management deci- sions from the product. These cameras have something like 100 times more wavelength data points and can drill down to a vine-by-vine analysis. We are interested in more than images showing possible irrigation leaks; we now know that imagery can detect virus signatures and give us quantifiable impact and rate of spread over time. Future image products will allow us to refine crop estimates or even generate a potential yield map. Hand-held cameras already tell us heat and/or water stress, but tools are now available to map anthocyanin potential and possibly highlight individual clusters to selectively pick for maximum quality and uniformity. The utility of the imagery is good now, but we are so close to having images generated by plane or satellite that replace hours of a vit tech or scout on an ATV collecting data and input- ting it into a device for pick decisions or vine health measurements. We have also tried to incorporate technol- ogy into our vineyard developments, with mixed success reduc- ing labor demands but definite improvements in operational efficien- cies. We haven't been thrilled with automated marking machines or planting machines, but I know other in- dustries use these extensively. I'm sure we will see these technologies eventually modified for vineyard applica- tions and greater adoption in the future. We have been pleased with improved design and ground-prepara- tion technologies and see the benefits in healthier and more uniform vine growth. We have been contracting an EM-38 sled through Hel- ena's AGRintelligence Services to best define the boundaries of our vineyard blocks and direct our soil sampling. The tool utilizes ground-penetrating radar technology known as LiDAR to map the soil profile at greater depths than the older electro-conductivity tools. It's shaped like a bass can- non, or a really cool subwoofer that fit in my hatchback car A CONVERSATION WITH Randy Heinzen Paso Robles vineyard consultant discusses practical technology By Laurie Daniel