Several actions have been implemented for this current season. The IVP team will endeavour to monitor and report back to members the findings.

 
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The actions include:

  • Under vine mulching and planting

  • Vine Phenology and Vineyard Management Practices.

  • Trunk disease, pruning wounds and vine replacement management.

  • Nutrition Monitoring.

  • Botrytis Decision Model Application

  • Spray Coverage Assessment

  • Soft Biological Trial - Botrytis

  • Blue-Sky Thinking

 

Components of the Innovation Vineyard Project

The easiest way to understand the scope of the IVP is to start breaking down each vineyard task, identify what is ‘best practice’ and then make it happen. To do this we need to;

 

1. Data Recording System

  • Record everything we do. If we haven’t measured it, we cannot manage it, and report on process and outcome. Currently we will have different systems to record various aspects of vineyard process.

  • We need to record all inputs into the vineyard at the relevant or commercial rate. This should include time and materials for running things such as the tractor. This can be compared with NZ Winegrowers Annual Benchmark Reports.

 

2. Soil and topography types

We needed to map the soil types and topography across all blocks. To do this we have utilised the services of AgriOptics New Zealand Ltd. In Sept 2018 they conducted an EM ground survey. The results of this have given us a GPS centred map of the vineyards soil texture at 50cm and 150cm depth as well as what is happening on the surface. We now have a series of maps that capture;

  • Aspect – the direction that the surface faces,

  • Depressions – that can impact on variations in temperature/frost, nutrient and water movement/concentration for example,

  • DualEM Zones, at both 50 and 150cm depths. This electromagnetic conductivity measurement value (milli-Siemens/m) gives us a picture of variations in soil texture (gravel/sand/clay), bulk density, water holding capacity and infiltration rates. The DualEM zones can be simplified to help define decision making processes for managing within and between blocks.

  • Elevation and landscape change – these layers contour the blocks to one meter intervals,

  • Slope – maps the block surface slope in % of slope; an aid to managing water/nutrient runoff, and safe machinery movement.

 

3. Pruning

This has been managed to set a good foundation for;

  • Individual vine health and vigour

  • Crop load

  • Disease management

  • Individualised by block

 

4. Vine Replacement and Replanting

Several methods of replanting have been introduced. A comparative assessment of these regimes should help determine best practice. 

 

5. Crop Monitoring

Fruitfed scouts will conduct eight passes throughout the season. 3 of the 10 blocks will be assessed to support management decisions from the pest and disease outcomes. Row numbers have been allocated to aid continuity and follow up.

 

6. Spray Timing

We have in place a thorough spray program with considered intervals covering all expected pests and diseases that we might expect to encounter throughout the crops development to harvest. In its development, previous pest and disease history was assessed. We look to report on the planned vs actual application dates, rates etc at the end of the season.

 

7. Spray Application

Sprayers will be calibrated at the beginning of the season, and assessed throughout the season to ensure that the setup is appropriate for changing canopy size and key targets.  Spray coverage with water sensitive papers will be used for assessment at key timings of pre-flowering, PBC to ensure we are hitting the target. 

 

8. Canopy Management

The actual application needs to be run on an as required basis each season, to aid spray coverage and optimise natural air flow to minimise a disease prone high humidity environment. Wine makers can be involved to optimise flavour profiles determined by varying leaf coverage.

 

9. Irrigation Monitoring

We have placed five Sentek Irrigation Probes strategically throughout the vineyard blocks. This equipment is supplied by Fruitition. We can assess the results we record from the probes with greater understanding and extrapolation now that we can refer then to our EM maps.

 

10. Nutrition

We will have several tools to enable monitoring. 

  • Soil tests – to facilitate annual dressings of primarily P, K, Mg, Ca, S; either as corrective and or balancing. EM Maps and Integrape can fine tune requirements, and if linked to the appropriate software and spreading technology, could lead to efficiencies and savings.

  • Foliar nutrition and/or fertigation – use of will be based on visual assessment of canopy development, and foliage testing pre and post flowering. Useful for managing N and trace elements during the season.

  • Integrape – is a data capturing and management tool that is currently focussed on nutrient management. The Innovation Vineyard Project has signed up for this season to assess its value on behalf of our membership.  It allows us to view, compare and analyse formatted external data.

    • Information can come from external sources such as;

      • Soil/leaf/sap tests

      • Ongoing satellite/drone imagery

    • This data can be integrated onto our GPS’ed EM maps from AgriOptics, and vice versa.

    • We can explore software and application technologies to deliver inputs in a smart targeted way in the vineyard.

    • There are interfaces to show captured data on aspects such as nutrition, but with prospects of assessing vine health, disease, crop loads etc. – development is in progress but will be available from November.

 

11. Under Vine Management

An assessment is being made between managing under vines conventionally with herbicides, compared to using sown plant species under vine, and managed by under vine mowing. Ease of management, vine vigour and crop quality will all be parameters used for assessment.

 

12. Blue-Sky Thinking 

Exploration into the use of drones/satellites for scanning of crop health etc. 

Integrate GPS data from drones/satellites into more targeted management of;

  • Sick vines – virus/trunk/root diseases

  • Vine nutrition

  • Pest and disease

  • Crop levels

Explore the use of smart machinery with soft-ware that can facilitate accurate, targeted measured application of agrichemical and nutrition as determined by GPS mapping.

 

13. Trials

Have the freedom to run our own small trails, or work with outside parties looking for sites to conduct independently assessed trials.

Will need to ensure that such work is acutely beneficial to all members, and does not interfere adversely with the day operations of Ben McLauchlan’s grape growing business.

 

Always moving forward…

The Innovation Project is a progressive, evolving and dynamic endeavour with an end goal of ongoing delivery of information to help our membership achieve better quality and greater returns.

It is hoped that the membership will become engaged and that information flow will be mutual.

Please feel free to liaise with Ben and Mart. Your input and feedback is greatly appreciated.