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GRAPE GRO WING Weather Stations Come a Long Way Innovations help growers gather data and put it to better use By Paul Franson yards. Fortunately, weather instruments have come a long way from the days when observers had to manually record temperatures and measure rainfall with calibrated collection cups. W Sophisticated instruments collect mea- surements such as leaf water content and soil moisture, transmit it by cell phone or satellite and present it via the Internet for vineyard managers to monitor from anywhere using smart phones and other portable devices. Vineyard weather sensors can moni- tor wind speed, temperature, dew point, humidity and barometric pressure, and interconnected network subscriptions give even deeper understanding of patterns. Wines & Vines interviewed several vineyard owners and managers who use the new technology to see how it's helping them; then we asked compa- nies supplying the technology to share product information. IPM using weather stations John Kautz Farms in Lodi, Calif., has had a Davis Instruments Vantage Pro2 weather station with integrated pest management (IPM) in the field for more than a year. The Kautz family owns and manages 5,500 acres of grapevines in and around California's San Joaquin Valley. It also has a crushing facility in Lodi called Bear Creek and owns Ironstone Vineyards in the Sierra Nevada foothills region, along with other labels. Joe Valente has been the vineyard man- ager for Kautz Farms in Lodi for the past 32 years, during which time he's learned a lot about pest and disease management in grapes. "Every year is different," he said. "You can't duplicate the weather." Weather is the most important factor when it comes to disease and pest man- agement, and IPM takes the proactive ap- proach that if you know the current and past conditions you can treat for potential pests and diseases. 42 WINES & VINES DECEMBER 2012 ith erratic climate events occurring glob- ally as the earth warms, it's never been more important to monitor the conditions in vine- In 2011, La Bella Rosa Vineyards' IPM for Grapes software identified pests attacking the leaves. Highlights • Climate change is making weather monitoring even more important. • Modern instruments include leaf- and soil-moisture sensors. • Sophisticated software helps target pests for treatment. "Every year we know if we have a cool spring that we need to be concerned about mildew, and if we have rain during the spring bloom we have to be concerned about phomopsis cane and leaf spot," Va- lente said. "If we have a hot summer with days reaching close to 100°F past July 4, we need to be concerned with mites and leaf hoppers. In 2011 we were lighter due to the blossoms getting rained on, but we expected 8-10 tons of grapes per acre for our normal yield." Valente knows the importance of integrated pest management and how the technology has evolved during the past several years. "Using IPM we follow the degree days so we are not spraying just to be spraying. We use sulfur on a normal rotation to control mildew, but the treat- ments are dependent on the weather, and pesticides are expensive. Some go up to $200 per acre—and that is just for the chemical, so you have to know when and where to use them. If we see mites as a potential threat, we check the field and depending on the number of them per leaf we know if we need to use a miticide. "Mites can be tricky because you have to watch when you use the miticide. You can't pick fruit within 30 days of spray- ing," Valente said. Valente has been monitoring the weather for many years using a wireless solar-powered Davis Instruments Vantage Pro, but this season he obtained new tech- nology, the IPM for Grapes software plus a wireless leaf-moisture sensor mounted in the canopy of his Zinfandel vines. The Davis Instruments Vantage Pro weather station tracks changing condi- tions in the field and sends them wireless- ly to Valente's office, where the Vantage Pro console reports real-time readings and automatically uploads information to the