Issue link: http://winesandvines.uberflip.com/i/776679
WINERY & VINEYARD EQUIPMENT February 2017 WINES&VINES 63 The company's vice president and general manager, John Williamson, has worked in vine- yard irrigation for 15 years and set up trials in the United States on more than 100 vineyard blocks. He said those trials proved promising, and the company was poised to increase the scope of its work in 2016, when it was ap- proached by Verizon. He said the cellular com- pany is looking to diversify its operations as the cell phone market begins to plateau and has picked agriculture—and specifically vine- yards—as one of those areas on which to focus. AgTech: Vineyard is the result of Verizon partnering with iTK. The new system uses Veri- zon's cellular network as well as the company's new "ThingSpace" platform, which was devel- oped to leverage the relatively new concept of the "Internet of Things," in which millions of sensors and devices communicate directly with each other. Verizon is developing a streamlined system to get vineyard data directly from sen- sors to the cellular network without needing as many—or possibly any—costly gateway units that link sensors with cell towers. In addition to the partnership with Veri- zon, what really sets iTK's system apart, says president Eric Jallas, Ph.D., is the process- based system that models plant performance. ITK first developed models for row crops and then started working in vineyards at the request of the French government to create a method to help growers reduce their pes- ticide use. ITK's team then spent several years turning functions such as photosynthe- sis into mathematical equations. "When you integrate all these equations together, then you can predict what will happen in the field," he said. For the U.S. wine industry, iTK built a sys- tem to help with irrigation decisions. Based on grape variety, root depth, soil type and texture, iTK can predict the water needs of a vineyard block and make recommendations about when and how much to irrigate. The system requires flowmeters to know how much water has been applied and real time weather information to determine evapotranspiration (ET). Based on those data inputs, the system's model can provide vine stress information that Williamson said is as accurate as daily pressure bomb readings. "AgTech provides a very easy interface to see exactly where the vine stress is in every block," he said. Jallas said iTK is currently working on a model for predicting the risk of powdery mil- dew and has plans for other functions that would tell growers how water and fertilizer use could affect the final yeast assimilable nitrogen levels in grapes or phenolics such as tannin and anthocyanins. CAMALIE NETWORKS camalienetworks.com Mark Holler is the owner of Camalie Vineyards in Napa Valley and developed his own wireless system to measure and manage his irrigation. In 2003, he started with a weather station and some soil moisture sensors but steadily expanded that using early wireless technology to monitor other vineyard blocks through the same system. In 2008, he launched Camalie Networks to market similar types of systems to other vine- yard companies. Holler developed his network with open-source, off-shelf components. "My core development strategy was just to use what other people have already invented," he said. Agtech