Remote Monitoring in Vineyards

Monitoring soil moisture and local weather conditions is common practice for many farmers as both factors are instrumental in growing crops or raising livestock. Few crops however are as susceptible to small changes as grapes. And with table grapes the looks matter just as much as the quality, leaving very little room for error for growers to produce a marketable product.

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From downy or powdery mildew to botrytis and phomopsis, many of the more common diseases threatening table grapes are caused by fungal growths that are managed with fungicides and canopy management. Knowing the exact weather conditions, soil moisture levels and leaf moisture presence, and being able to translate this into the correct crop management strategy, is key for grape growers in order to be able to harvest a marketable product. Increasingly, remote monitoring of these factors is becoming commonplace in the industry.

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I recently visited INCYT client Anthony Molluso, who owns and operates V & P Vineyards in Robinvale, Victoria. Anthony grows a mix of Sweet Sapphire, Crimson, Sweet Globe and Thompson seedless grapes, table grape varieties for both domestic use as well as export. Last year Anthony decided to install INCYT’s soil moisture probes and a weather station in his vineyard so he can get a more detailed overview of the exact growing conditions his grapes are facing.

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Local Elders senior horticultural agronomist Molly Black helped Anthony with his equipment selection, utilising the TEKFARM program. The TEKFARM program is supported by Farmers 2 Founders, through funding from the Australian Government’s Future Drought Fund. Anthony decided to install the equipment himself,  stating  “we got the INCYT equipment delivered to the vineyard and decided to do the installation ourselves so we can learn exactly how everything works and make sure we install the soil moisture probes in the most representative location from a variety and soil type perspective.”

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Molly explained “the soil moisture probes are installed permanently so we don’t need to remove them in winter, and we didn’t want any antennas sticking out of the canopy as we put plastic covers over the vines before harvest to protect them against rain and hail. Even with the blue nodes mounted underneath the bulk of the vine vegetation, on the trellis posts, we haven’t had any problems with signal interference due to the canopy density or plastic covers this summer, which is a big benefit of INCYT’s network.”

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Many grape growers and their agronomists, like Anthony and Molly, like to keep a close eye on the weather conditions so they can make the best possible spray decisions as quickly as possible. Some vineyards even go a step further and install an INCYT leaf wetness sensor so they can measure the exact leaf moisture presence and let this aid their decision-making process particularly around minimising plant stress.

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As Molly puts it, “I can keep an eye on the weather information for Robinvale, which is 80 kilometres from the nearest weather station in Mildura, but this isn’t very accurate for a specific vineyard in the area, such as Anthony’s operation. Having a weather station location in the vineyard is always preferable. We also decided on getting soil moisture probes, as soil moisture is so important when it comes to growing grapes. We need to make sure the vines have enough, or slightly less throughout the different stages of the growing season, but we don’t want them to become waterlogged at any point and get diseased either. It’s a fine balance between not enough and too much, and INCYT’s vineyard monitoring system helps us find this balance.”

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It’s great to see the benefits of vineyard monitoring with INCYT’s system in-person and hear the real stories of how growers like Anthony and agronomists like Molly benefit from digital monitoring.

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Keen to find out for yourselves? INCYT has clients in all Australian states and most likely in your immediate area. I’d be happy to connect you with one of our clients so you can see INCYT in action for yourself and hear from them about how they’re benefitting from digitally monitoring their operation.