Lumo, the precision irrigation system growers use to irrigate to plan, has just released their new Irrigation Insights Report titled, Closing the Execution Gap: How Block-Level Irrigation Data Drives Profitability.
The report presents first-of-its-kind block-level irrigation data collected from more than 4,500 irrigation events across hundreds of premium vineyard blocks in Napa and Sonoma over the course of the 2024 growing season.
The central finding is that irrigation system performance is highly variable at an individual block level—one in ten irrigations miss their target volume by 50% or more and three in four irrigations miss by 10% or more.
This lack of precision hurts growers’ ability to execute irrigations to plan and is costing them thousands of dollars an acre in lost productivity.
The good news is that the report also highlights four data-driven strategies winegrape growers can adopt to dial in their irrigation precision and produce better crop outcomes.
“I couldn’t be more excited about putting out this new report on closing the execution gap,” said Devon Wright, Lumo’s CEO. “Solving this challenge, helping growers achieve block-level irrigation precision, is what Lumo is built for. Growers are facing labor shortages, rising input costs, and a lack of profitability. To meet the needs of this moment they need to find a way to do more with less, to increase operational efficiency across the board, while still maintaining quality and yield. That’s what this report is about.”
Lumo is now installed at over 100 vineyards in Napa, Sonoma, the Central Coast and the Okanagan, including six of the top ten largest winegrape growers in North America, and is rapidly expanding with well-known names like Redwood Empire Vineyard Management and Treasury Wine Estates.
Lumo continues to roll out new features, including block-level pressure monitoring and pump automation, helping vineyards automate their irrigations from end-to-end with full accountability and reach new levels of irrigation precision and performance.
“We successfully automated almost every irrigation set last season on 60 acres of the ranch, running the pump at night and freeing up irrigator hours to irrigate other blocks on the ranch during the day,” said Andrew Oliver, Vineyard Manager at Antinori. “For the first time, I can say that these blocks were sufficiently irrigated, and last year’s canopy and crop proved that.”
Lumo also continues to grow its network of partners, who help install and maintain the precision irrigation system. “Lumo has built an awesome, super rugged, high-quality diaphragm valve. Wireless and with a built-in flow sensor, it’s easy to maintain and manage yourself,” said Chris Mark, President of Vintality: Tech+Terroir, a Lumo partner in the Okanagan. “We’re putting in almost 200 of these valves right now. It’s a really exciting piece of equipment that we think we’re gonna see all over the place in the years to come.”
“The team of professionals that Lumo has put together is incredibly talented, dedicated, and a blast to work with, and I can’t wait to see where their hard work takes them in shaping the future of irrigation,” added Andrew Oliver.
In a world where water is scarce, labor is expensive, and margins are thin, growers who continue to operate without block-level visibility are capping their crop potential and hurting the long-term viability of their operation.
Closing the execution gap, ensuring every block gets the right amount of water, is an economic and agronomic imperative.
To see how block-level irrigation data can level up your own irrigation precision and performance, grab your free copy of the report here.
For more information on Lumo or to request a demo, go to: https://lumo.ag.
