The development of the robot is critical as managing such diseases as powdery and downy mildews in vineyards is the top concern for grape growers and viticulturists.

An autonomous robot – a base on wheels fitted with computer vision technology that snaps images of grapevines in near real-time – rolls down a long row of plants in a vineyard at Cornell AgriTech in Geneva, New York.

Next spring, a small army of Cornell-developed PhytoPatholoBots (PPB) will be deployed to four grape breeding programs across the U.S. on a mission to guide the global grape and wine industry into the 21st century.