Blake Mendez

My research theme at Texas Tech University concerns resilient, rural community development through overhead vineyard agrivoltaics and underground water management.  Water centers the research’s focus because it is our most vulnerable resource that requires climate adaptive strategies. 

Agrivoltaics is colocated agriculture and solar actively working together in a farming system.  The technological arrangement amplifies agricultural production and provides meaningful pathways for small communal and smallholder farms to develop autonomy and ownership over food, water, and energy.  Vineyard agrivoltaics systems have shown success in Provence, France, and Toledo, Spain, which are climactically like our Llano Estacado growing region.  Shade creation is the name of the game.

We seek to provide community and farmer-owned tools, methods, and resources that can be applied towards practical applications on the vineyard.  Our process places emphasis on agricultural and farmer priorities before solar power needs. 

Where are you in the process?

I am working with Drs. Jorge Salazar-Bravo from the Biology Department and Thayne Montague from the Plant and Soil Science Department to probe and examine the role that overhead agrivoltaics play on vineyards’ irrigation needs and underground water resources.  Our first official funding request was sent to the Cynthia & George Mitchell Foundation for programming funds to examine the role that overhead agrivoltaics plays on subsurface water management, specifically the Ogallala Aquifer.   We are seeking external funding opportunities from private foundations and impact funds.

What do you expect to gain from the research?

I aim to support domestic and international winegrowing areas, specifically the Caucasus Mountains, the Mediterranean Basin, and Latin America, through our research insights.  The research program at Texas Tech has helped me develop cross-disciplinary research methods across plant, animal, and hydrological disciplines and refine my ecosystem thinking.  It has allowed me to hone my project management skills in a research environment and launch my PhD pathway. 

My research can help place Texas Tech on the research map as an institution that has unique and actionable environmental niche modeling tools and provides meaningful pathways for small communal and smallholder farms to leverage agrivoltaics.  I seek to attract research funding to Texas Tech and build out a cross-disciplinary research network that focuses on overhead agrivoltaics and water management; most importantly, I desire owning and operating a vineyard agrivoltaics farm to create my own family farming legacy with my son Blaine and our family.