See also: Cabernet Sauvignon ripen (Quicktime, 52 sec)
Cabernet Sauvignon ripen (Windows Media Player, 52 sec)
Produced and created by Gregory Gambetta and Jon Schadt ©UC Davis Department of Viticulture and Enology
Time-lapse video shows grapes during growing season
In less than a minute, you can watch a Cabernet Sauvignon grape plant ripen throughout five months, thanks to Greg Gambetta and Jon Schadt of the Department of Viticulture and Enology.
What you see is a time-lapse video in which photographs were taken during daytime at one-hour intervals for 16 hours each day. The movie moves through several days every second, ultimately spanning 150 days.
As you watch the video, take note of:
- the daylight cycle reflected in the leaf movement
- the twisting of tendrils searching to find something to grab and their subsequent dying back
- the uneven ripeness within the clusters
Finally, you can explore specific parts of the video by using the time cursor in the player to move the movie forward and backward.
Gambetta is a staff researcher and Schadt a Web designer in the viticulture and enology department. The video was produced for Professor Mark Matthews’ laboratory as part of the lab’s mission to help farmers who grow wine grapes improve production efficiency and fruit quality. Specifically, the researchers are creating a better understanding of the water and nutrient needs of their vineyards.
As part of the long-term goal aimed at improving the use of water and other limited resources, studies focus on how plants interact physically and chemically with their environments.