The world of viticulture is evolving with the advancement of Agri-tech, and integration of technologies such as automation, digitization, and artificial intelligence in agricultural process. As per the International Organization for Vine and Wine, vineyards occupied 7.3 million hectares of agricultural land globally as of 2021. This shows the extent at which vineyard owners and farmers are in need of tools that can help them with smart vineyard management.
Globally, the demand for grapes and their byproducts, such as wines and juices, has significantly increased since 2010. This is in turn has escalated the demand for effective and smart vineyard management technologies.
This article talks about the process of vineyard management followed by listing some of the most exciting emerging technologies in the smart vineyard management market.
What is smart vineyard management?
Smart vineyard management methods assist winemakers and vineyard managers in mapping, monitoring crops, and taking the appropriate steps to increase viticultural productivity. Small, medium, or big farms can all benefit from smart vineyard management. Sensors, agricultural robots, platforms powered by AI and the Internet of Things, drones, and other devices are some of the tools frequently utilized for smart vineyard management.
Conventional vineyard management techniques are unable to respond to poor weather, pest infestations, and crop diseases accurately and quickly. Due to extreme weather and diseases such as white powdery mildew, leaf blight, and downy mildew, vineyard crops have suffered severe losses in several places, including India, the U.S., and Canada.
Therefore, these technologies are essential for several vineyard applications, including weeding, crop protection, and pest management. Autonomous equipment is expected to outperform traditional vineyard management techniques, which are now dominated by manual labor, since it offers greater precision in vineyard operations.
In the vineyard business, several developments are paving the way for digitalization and the implementation of cutting-edge technologies.
Precision agriculture is the primary enabler of efficient vineyard management, and efficiency in viticulture is the primary goal of vineyard owners and managers globally. Drones, robots, and sensors are examples of precision technology that can be used for harvesting, soil mapping, crop management, and other vineyard activities.
It’s a common misperception that the precise technology industry promotes migration from rural to urban areas and substitutes labor. Precision technology, on the other hand, enhances producers’ quality of life while expanding options for productive employment.
The need for digital and smart vineyard monitoring and management systems and solutions is anticipated to rise in response to the expanding markets for grapes and vineyards, which will fuel the expansion of the smart vineyard management market.
According to the BIS Research market report, the smart vineyard management market was valued at $1.21 billion in 2021 and is expected to reach $2.15 billion by 2027, growing at a CAGR of 10.08% during the forecast period 2022-2027.
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Technologies Enabling Smart Vineyard Management
Smart vineyard management, a new concept to increase vineyard productivity, is acknowledged as the application of automation and precision in vineyards. Technologies such as guidance, sensing, analytics, and other precision technologies are all part of smart vineyard management, which minimizes the waste of agri-inputs and makes it possible to manage vineyards profitably and effectively. A few of these technologies are discussed further in the article.
1. Guidance Technology: To solve issues faced by vineyard managers, such as crop losses, the smart vineyard management market deploys intelligent technologies in the vineyard. The use of guidance technology is one such example.
The global positioning system (GPS) and global navigation satellite system (GNSS) technologies are mostly included in the guidance technology since they are widely used in the smart vineyard management sector for navigational needs. Satellites are used to accomplish this, sending signals to the receiver or user that accurately pinpoint the vineyard’s location.
Monitoring vine properties is made possible by guidance technologies. Among other applications, GPS/GNSS hardware and software can be used for automated record-keeping, vehicle navigation, and inter-vehicle communications. These services concentrate on distributing seeds, herbicides, and fertilizers precisely, minimizing input overlap and operator fatigue, among other things. These technologies, however, encounter several difficulties relating to poor connectivity and battery life.
Both device makers and telecom companies have been introducing effective smart farming solutions to the market to address these issues. Many businesses have built GNSS tracking-capable services with features like geofences. Guidance controllers are offered by international businesses like Topcon for the market for smart vineyard management.
2. Sensing Technology: The introduction of sensing technologies to agriculture gave rise to data-driven farming. An important component of precision agriculture is the data generation process. The increased use of automated systems with cutting-edge sensor technologies is a result of the growing requirement for management and control in vineyard operations.
The foundation of the implementation of smart vineyard management in the agricultural sector is the use of cameras, sensors, drone and satellite photography, and remote sensing. The sensors have analytic models and knowledge repositories to deliver focused results.
The development of data-driven farming technologies has led to the collection of a variety of data by a wide range of sensors and cameras, enabling a better understanding of the vineyard, including crop, soil, water, and climate conditions, as well as the machines operating on the vineyards, leading to more precise and prompt decision making.
To measure production factors like soil temperature, soil moisture, air temperature, solar radiation, soil nutrients, harvest, and weed density that help them in their daily vineyard management, vineyard managers and winemakers use sensing technology services to take high-definition images of farms and crops. The vineyard management can analyze the necessary information with the help of these data analysis software solutions that are coupled with sensing technology services.
As data is fed into guidance and variable rate technologies by the existence of sensor technologies, those technologies are better able to function. The users’ deployment flexibility is aided by the portable nature of sensing technology equipment. Key sensing system types include flow sensing systems, temperature sensing systems, moisture sensing systems, and position sensing systems.
3. Variable Rate Technology (VRT): Precision in the application of fertilizers and other inputs to the vineyard is the main goal of variable rate technology (VRT). It is a technique for using agricultural inputs at different rates in designated zones throughout a vineyard. This approach is used to guarantee input application efficacy, sustainability, and environmental safety while also guaranteeing effectiveness.
This element lowers capital expenditures for service providers and vineyard managers alike. The vineyard manager can concentrate on the area that yields the highest return, thanks to VRT.
Conclusion
Smart vineyard management has emerged as a highly beneficial technology catering to diverse vineyard management applications such as detecting soil quality, climatic conditions, and crop requirements.
By providing more accurate methods that can increase vineyard operations’ efficiency, smart vineyard management can aid in the modernization of the viticulture industry. Since manual labor is scarce, effective vineyard management can also contribute to social sustainability by substituting for labor.
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