Weathering the storm: digital technology keeps tabs on Mother Nature

Wines & Vines, Sept, 2003 by Jane Firstenfeld

When the nights get chilly and frost is imminent in the Penn Valley, Calif., acreage of Indian Spring Vineyards, managing partner Denis Ball sleeps soundly, knowing his vines are in good hands. Perhaps Ball or his vineyard manager will be roused briefly from their slumber with a phone call, but neither of them will need to lift more than a finger. The call will be from their weather monitoring station, through its modem connection, just to let them know that frost is nigh and it's turning on the irrigation to prevent vine damage. Ball and his manager can roll over and rest easy.

"It's kind of a fail-safe product," says Ball of the frost warning and irrigation monitoring system he bought from Automata, Inc., Nevada City, Calif., about four years ago. "If there is anything wrong with it, it calls to let you know."

Until this year, Indian Spring's remote monitor wasn't quite as user-friendly as an automatic hotel wake-up call. For the first three years, it merely contacted the vineyard manager's computer to let him know of frost potential, and he would make the decision whether or not to turn on the irrigation. Now, the pump actually starts, then calls him. "I've been all over the country when I get the calls," Ball says. At present, Indian Spring is protecting 50 of its 225 vineyard acres with the Automata monitors, and Ball is contemplating additional stations in the future.

In a business like the wine industry, fraught with uncertainty literally from the ground up, any remotely fail-safe system is a welcome addition. Weather monitoring stations have been staples in the vineyard for about 15 years now, and advances in digital technology are continually being incorporated to provide grape-growers with both a safety net and a competitive edge. Maybe you can't fool Mother Nature, but you can now keep better tabs on her.

"Spread spectrum radio has been a great benefit to users," according to Lenny Feuer, president and chief engineer at Automata. "It removes the licensing requirement for radio use and provides better communications.... Currently, we are making use of the Internet for economical communications as part of a network. I expect this aspect to grow."

Automata's products monitor a wide spectrum of weather parameters, including temperature, relative humidity, solar radiation, wind speed/direction and leaf wet. The gathered data from these measurements are used to run disease, insect, irrigation and crop development models, as well as frost warning. Automata's field stations are customized so each buyer gets only the components he needs, at an estimated cost of $2,000 to $5,000 including telemetry. Installation is usually done by the buyer within one-half to a full day.

As Denis Bali's experience suggests, frost warning is the most common application for weather monitors. Feuer concurs, "because the risk of not doing it is very abrupt and expensive. Irrigation monitoring tools, such as soil moisture monitoring or evapo-transportation," are applications that tend to be overlooked, he feels.

Spectrum Technologies, Inc., Plainfield, Ill., has been a leader in the weather monitoring field since 1987. Marketing supervisor Mike Mueller agrees that frost alert and avoidance are key applications, but adds that, "Geographical location greatly impacts what technology will best benefit a vineyard.... In areas where water availability is limited, irrigation and soil moisture tools offer great value."

Safe From Pests And Pesticides

In an era when pesticide use is increasingly problematical, growers should also consider weather stations' disease monitoring capabilities. "A strong disease model shows growers exactly when to spray (and not to!), a more effective method than scheduled or 'gut feeling' spraying," Mueller suggests. "The benefits are reduced cost and less environmental impact--some growers justify the cost of equipment by missing a single spraying."

Spectrum's WatchDog line of weather stations has been fine-tuned to fit different applications and budgets. "Like most technology, weather stations have become smaller, less expensive and easier to use over time," Mueller says. "Recent advances in wireless technology (telemetry) and low-draw power sources have exponentially increased the usability and value of weather monitoring equipment."

Spectrum equipment ranges from a basic meter at $100 to a fully-equipped weather station for under $2,000. The Grape Alert WeatherTracker logs user-specified degree days, chill hours and leaf wetness, and runs this data against a powdery mildew model to predict the disease's occurrence. The information is displayed on screen, the first such product to provide this data without requiring a computer. All of Spectrum's data logging gear runs on standard batteries available at the supermarket.

Battery power is also a key element of the HOBO weather stations supplied by Onset Computer Corporation, Bourne, Mass. Onset entered the vineyard climate monitor field six years ago, starting with single-parameter data loggers and expanding to complete weather stations.