Within days, troops were hacking down contaminated fields of tomato vines with machetes.
Mr. Rodríguez abhors the changes, and has sought to buy old fields of bush vines, which he says are crucial to good Rioja.
The concept for the project was inspired by the extreme care and individualization that vineyards use when dealing with a seemingly monoculture fields of grape vines.
Before 8 a.m., two tribal leaders met us on the side of the main highway that connects the capital with the country's north, and we followed their white pickup through winding roads that cut through vast green fields of grape vines.
Miles of blueberry and corn fields and acres of vines are punctuated by immaculate tall red barns and stands of pine, aspen and maple.
Summer scholar and Cornell student Anne Repka '17 has spent her summer trudging through muddy fields, sampling hundreds of vines, and processing these samples in a lab, learning about many of the challenges commonly addressed by grape growers and researchers.
An interesting field study of pea vines, conducted by Washington State University, is available online at agsyst.wsu.edu/peareport.htm.htm
Mechanization sometimes meant rearranging the fields, planting new types of vines or trees and retrofitting packing plants.
August is Santorini's grape harvest season, and we passed farmers with their donkeys in fields dotted with clumps of vines tightly coiled like baskets, a traditional practice to shield the delicate fruit from the island's brutal winds.
