Vineyard innovative tools based on the integration of earth observation services and in-field sensors (VitiGEOSS project)

Context and purpose of the study – Climate change is having an unprecedented impact on the wine industry, which is one of the major agricultural sectors around the world. Global warming, combined with the variation in rainfall patterns and the increase in frequency of extreme weather events, is significantly influencing vine physiology and exposing, more frequently, plants to severe biotic and abiotic stresses. This represents a challenge for viticulturists who need to take complex decisions to adjust vineyard management and achieve oenological goals. This often results in undesired increases in fertilizer and pesticide use, fruit yield losses, and changes in berry composition at harvest, with a negative impact on sustainability. VitiGEOSS is a project that has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme and develops innovative vineyard management solutions, to optimize sustainable grapevine cultivation via Decision Support Systems (DSS) on climate, phenology, irrigation, disease, business, and sustainability management.

Material and methods – The project developed tools to empower the usage of Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS), Copernicus satellite programs, Copernicus climate change service and infield sensors available in a single platform to provide support to wine producers, improving the efficiency of vineyards thanks to accurate mapping, novel production indicators, image and time series processing and accurate forecasting. Pilot plots located at 3 demo sites (Italy, Portugal, and Spain) were established to provide enough data to calibrate/train and validate the models included in the platform. 

Results – The VitiGEOSS platform includes 5 main services: (i) Weather and climate forecast, involving advanced techniques to apply short-term weather forecasts and sub-seasonal to seasonal climate forecasts for decision-making processes; (ii) Phenological monitoring and prediction, an automated system to better plan and organize the whole vineyard management through phenological models, satellite, and in-field observations; (iii) Crop status, that involves satellite imagery for optimizing irrigation, sampling or selective harvesting leading to better grape quality and production; (iv) Disease management, which allows forecasting the disease evolution considering the meteorological conditions and crop status to optimize the treatments and resource use; (v) Business and sustainability, a resource optimizer and planner service for field operations.