Use of technology in the vineyard

The Industrial Revolution brought the technology into the agriculture. Since then, technology made a great leap forward and can not be synonymous with the non-natural way of growing – on the contrary, technology can significantly help you grow naturally by helping farmers organize easily and get better informed, without touching your actual vines, which are still perfectly natural. The development of new technologies, the need for economically efficient food production, and environmental protection have led to the development of precision agriculture.

Precision agriculture (PA) is a farming management concept based on observing and measuring environmental data to optimize crop production and minimize environmental impact and risk. This kind of farming is especially useful in producing high-value crops, such as grape production. Precision viticulture (PV) technologies have begun to develop more intensively in Australia in the late 1990’s. However, the core concept of PV has its roots in the French concept of Terroir, which refers to the specific (environmental) conditions that give the wine its unique flavour and aroma. With PV technologies, appropriate viticulture management practices can be applied according to variations in the vineyard, which influence the grape quantity and quality, such as soil, topography, micro-climate, etc.

Several different technologies can be applied in the vineyard, such as global positioning systems (GPS), meteorologic stations, satellite and airborne remote sensing, geographic information systems (GIS), digital elevation models (DEM), high-resolution soil surveys, wireless sensor networks, and more. The distributed sensor networks and decision support systems (DSS) will play an essential role in future grape production by monitoring the key environmental factors in the vineyard (such as temperature and humidity), solving management problems and helping with decision-making.

Applied technologies can give you information that helps you optimize harvest time according to the ripeness of the grapes. Since the cost of inputs in viticulture, such as water, fertilizers, machinery, and pesticides, are constantly rising, high technology can help minimize the cost of those inputs and grow more natural, healthy grapes while helping regain some of the joy of growing that was a bit lost with the industrialization of farming. Precision viticulture systems also predict yields, collect soil for nutritional analysis, and forecast disease development. Despite all of the studies showing that the information provided by PV technologies is reliable and can lower production costs, even by 20 – 30%, many winegrowers still rely only on their “instinct”. Having the winegrowers’ instinct is great, but having the technology that can back up feelings and give additional information to make decisions easier is priceless. Precision viticulture technology enables any winegrower to produce the best wine possible in a given location and weather.  

The agricultural sector is currently in a phase of the introduction of new technologies that save time, money, and the environment. But everyone must realize that technology is only useful if we know what we want to achieve with it!

At eVineyard, we work hard to stay on top of the latest technology trends and integrate the latest useful technologies for winegrowers in a way that they work without any special configuration. Bring the most valuable technologies to our customers in the most beneficial way through our complete software solution for winegrowing, eVineyard.

Sources:

• Proffitt, T. Precision Viticulture – how vignerons are using spatial information to improve their business. 2013. SPAA Precision Ag Symposium, WACA, Perth, WA.
• Proffitt, T. and Winter, E. Adoption of Precision Viticulture on the rise. 2008. The Australian & New Zealand Grapegrower & Winemaker, Issue 539.
• Featured image by Mohamed Hassan from Pixabay and Marina Prodanović on Unsplash