Nasa technology can spot wine grape disease from the sky. The world’s food supply could benefit

A drone image captures a grateful message scrawled in a vineyard in the Lodi, California region by growers who collaborated with Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory on research to detect a crop-destroying virus. — Lodi Winegrape Commission/TNS

Cutting-edge Nasa imaging technology can detect early signs of a plant virus that, if unaddressed, often proves devastating for wineries and grape growers, new research has found.

While the breakthrough is good news for the wine and grape industry, which loses billions of dollars a year to the crop-ruining disease, it could eventually help global agriculture as a whole.