Growing productive and efficient vineyards
Vinescapes’ viticulturists Joel Jorgensen and Rob Poyser sat down to discuss how data collection and analysis drive their approach to increasing yield, nurturing healthy vines, and achieving cost savings throughout the year.
Importantly, Joel explained how with sufficient data, vineyard management becomes a lot easier – by revealing how often you need to apply protective measures such as sprays, how much a vineyard might need additional nutrients or fertiliser and where to concentrate labour over the season.
Q. Why is data collection important for what you do?
Joel: “Every vineyard site is distinctly different so we tailor our services and don’t work to a recipe. We make sure we fully understand the wine product or style our clients are seeking to create, and we respond accordingly. This means getting the right data sets to decide how to deliver the best possible fruit at harvest time.”
Rob: “We do spend a lot of time counting, sampling and reporting on the health and state of the vineyard but this results in a lot of time and money saved for our clients by knowing what we do need to do and when.”
Joel: “If we were to followed published guidelines on how to manage the vines, when and what to spray, or how to prune, it would cost our clients significantly more. Instead, by using a data-driven approach, we keep costs down while delivering optimal results.”
Rob: “The important thing is to know when not to do anything. We follow a regenerative viticulture approach. If we interfere with this, it can often be detrimental. This approach not only saves costs, but it allows nature to build the soil structure and resilience each vine needs to perform at its best.”
Q. Can you give me some real examples where data analysis delivered better results?
Joel: “We work with a vineyard, which initially had a problem of having too much fruit – they couldn’t get it ripe, resulting in a lot of fruit wasted. By pruning more effectively and counting at inflorescence, fruit set and veraison, we could bring the harvest forward and manage the yield more effectively. We also saved them a significant amount on labour. They are now producing impressive, quality fruit and getting it into the winery on time.”
Rob: “At all our sites, we are diligent at scouting for pests across the vineyard. We also carefully monitor the weather and conditions. This might mean we visit the site a few more times than our clients expect, however we know this saves clients thousands of pounds in sprays. We don’t spray unless the data tells us we need to.”
Joel: “I can confidently say we spray 30-50% less than the Green Book spray program, due to data collection and our regenerative approach. We have the confidence, experience and decades of knowledge to trust the data indicators to know not to spray, if we don’t need to.”
Q. What are some of the data sets you collect?
Rob: “Soil analysis is a big one. We collect detailed data about the soil structure, nutrient status soil, bacterial and fungal populations, assess how soil holds moisture and how the soil maintains biodiversity in the soil. We regularly count earthworms and other life forms in the soil and under vine too.
This helps us to understand what cover crops to plant, the mulch and compost load required or fertilisers to apply.”
Joel: “Assessing the biodiversity of a site gives us a lot of information. It can tell us whether the soil is in poor health or in good condition. We also take a good look at the soil carbon stocks across the site.
But we also do a lot of analysis of the canes, canopy, and bunches, to manage the crop load per variety and clone.”
Rob: “We see the results when we take on a new site and the difference we can make in just one year simply by assessing biodiversity, counting earthworms and looking at carbon stocks.
One of the best things we’ve found our clients can do is to reduce mowing alleys and headlands. Allowing grass and cover crops to grow is extremely beneficial for promoting biodiversity and improving the overall health of a vineyard, not to mention the amount of time and fuel it saves.”