New and emerging technologies for the vineyard: the Vineyard of the ...

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New and emerging technologies for the vineyard: the Vineyard of the Future initiative By Sigfredo Fuentes1*, Roberta De Bei2 and Stephen D. Tyerman2 1 University of Melbourne, Melbourne School of Land and Environment, VIC 3010, Australia. 2 School of Agriculture Food and Wine and Waite Research Institute, The University of Adelaide, Plant Research Centre. Waite Campus, PMB 1 Glen Osmond, 5064, SA, Australia. *Corresponding author. Email: [email protected]

The Vineyard of the Future (VOF) initiative, led by The University of Adelaide, has developed and tested new and emerging technologies in an effort to find adaptive tools to mitigate the effects of climate change on grapevines. Introduction The viticulture sector and wider agriculture industry are highly vulnerable to climate change, therefore, high levels of adaptive responses are required and expected (Anderson et al. 2008, Howden et al. 2003). These adaptive responses will rely on accurate determinations

of the magnitude of climate change effects on productivity and quality of winegrapes (Webb 2008). In a warming climate scenario, accompanied by increasing frequency and severity of climatic anomalies such as heatwaves, water use might increase in an attempt to reduce heat and water stress (Deitch 2009, Hayman et al. 2009). A double

warming effect can also be produced due to a compression of phenological stages in grapevines, resulting in early harvest within hotter months (Webb 2008). An increased need for irrigation could also be exacerbated due to reductions in precipitation in grapegrowing regions, such as California, Chile, Europe and Australia (Orang et al. 2008, Snyder et

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This paper discusses some of the techniques that will soon be available to growers to assess spatial and temporal changes in soil moisture, canopy growth and architecture and plant water status. al. 1996, Webb 2008). Furthermore, the most worrying effects for the viticultural industry around the world are the global geographic shifts in land and climate suitability for agriculture, which in the Southern Hemisphere will be southwards (Hannah et al. 2013, Webb et al. 2012). Some adaptive responses have already been identified, such as yield compensation strategies to account for reductions in quality, shifting sites of vineyards, and variety substitution (Webb 2008). However, there are a number of irrigation and canopy management techniques that can be applied to ameliorate the effect of climate change on existing varieties and winegrowing regions. Traditional monitoring of plant growth and physiological variables involves discrete frequency in sampling (i.e., for irrigation scheduling). This method will likely miss important processes in the viticultural crop cycle, especially in the event of climatic anomalies, which reduce the response time of amelioration management techniques. Developing and testing new and emerging technologies are the main focusses of the Vineyard of the Future (VOF) initiative, which is led by The University of Adelaide, in an effort to use novel techniques to find efficient mitigating or adaptive tools to the effects of climate change on grapevines. The VOF technologies are based on the intensive monitoring of spatial and temporal variations of soil–plant–atmosphere factors. A great volume of data collection also requires more robust and complex analysis methods to explain the effects of climate change on plant physiology, phenology, growth, water status and balance between the reproductive and vegetative organs, which are critical for quality grapes. Within this system, management strategies such as irrigation techniques, canopy management, canopy sprays, shading materials and new varieties can be tested to find the most effective adaptation. The VOF idea has already spread to other viticultural regions around the world. Countries such as Spain (La Rioja, Professor Javier Tardaguila, The University of La Rioja), US (California, Dr Martin Mendez, E.J. Gallo Winery) and Chile (Talca, Professor Samuel Ortega-Farias and Dr Carlos Poblete-Echeverria, The University of Talca) are now participating in the VOF initiative. This paper discusses some of the techniques developed within the framework of the VOF that will soon be available to growers to assess spatial and temporal changes in soil moisture, canopy growth and architecture and plant water status. The techniques involved are mapping 2D and 3D soilwetting patterns, cover photography for leaf area index (LAI) and architecture assessment, infrared (IR) thermography and near infrared (NIR) spectroscopy. This work in relating the shortrange remote sensing techniques constitutes an additional step forward in the implementation of these technologies as an automated routine technique for physiological vineyard assessment from proximal sensing and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) platforms, such as drones and robots. V2 8N 3

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Figure 1. Advanced Integrated Vineyard Monitoring and Logging System (AIVMLS). Description of new technologies for the vineyard

Figure 2. Snapshots taken at the beginning (a and d); middle (b and e) and end (c and f) of an irrigation event (five hours) of surface drip using WPA©. Distance in a, b and c is from the vine trunk (inter-plant) and for d, e and f is from the emitter (inter-row). Red triangle shows the position of the drip. Image modified from Fuentes et al. (2006).

The research that is currently being undertaken within the international VOF uses the Advanced Integrated Monitoring and Logging System (AIVMSL) approach that is represented in Figure 1.

presented and released in late 2013 and will help growers to target irrigations and fertigations to areas within the rootzone of maximum water and nutrient uptake, avoiding excessive irrigations and losses of fertiliser for more economically and environmentally efficient management.

New in-soil monitoring techniques

New plant-based technologies and techniques

Soil wetting and nutrient patterns A wetting pattern analyser (WPA®) program has been created by the Australian arm of the VOF to characterise 2D and 3D soil wetting and nutrient patterns (Figure 2) within the rootzone (Fuentes 2005, Fuentes et al. 2003, Fuentes et al. 2006). This tool has recently been incorporated into the Irrimax™ software from Sentek Pty Ltd Australia (capacitance soil moisture and salinity probes). The software will be

Infrared thermography and automated analysis Infrared (IR) thermography applied to vineyards has been proposed as a tool to estimate plant water status since 2002 (Jones et al. 2002, Stoll and Jones 2005, Stoll and Jones 2007). Some research has also focussed on the use of IR to assess the incidence of diseases in grapevines (Stoll et al. 2008). However, the bottleneck of this technique was the lack of automated infrared thermal image analysis programs. The Australian

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Figure 3. Infrared thermal image (left) from a grapevine canopy and automated nonleaf material discrimination technique (right) proposed in Fuentes et al. (2012).

Figure 4. Infrared thermal and hyperspectral cameras mounted on an octocopter at the Chilean VOF.

Figure 5. Micro-electronic modulated spectrophotometer (MEMS) used for rapid water status assessment of grapevines (Thermo scientific). Figure 6. Upward-looking picture taken using an iPhone 4S (left) and the CanopyLAI® application developed (right). VOF group proposed an automated analysis method to assess plant water status (Figure 3) that can be applied to analyse changes within canopies due to environmental factors, disease incidence (Fuentes et al. 2012a) or smoke contamination from bushfires (Fuentes et al. 2012a). This new analysis

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method can be used on images and videos obtained from an unmanned aerial vehicle, such as octocopters (being trialled by the Chilean arm of VOF) (Figure 4). Near infrared (NIR) spectroscopy The University of Adelaide has demonstrated that grapevine water status can be measured nondestructively using near infrared (NIR) spectroscopy techniques. The Australian VOF combined NIR spectra of leaves W i n e & V i t i cultur e Jo ur n a l MAY/JUNe 2013

(in which the regions around 1200, 1450 and 1930nm are associated with the presence of water in the sample) and more established techniques of measuring the plant water status using midday stem water potential, to develop models for the prediction of water potential based on the spectral signature of leaves only (De Bei et al. 2011). Results have shown good agreements between both techniques offering a new tool for irrigation scheduling (Figure 5). Current research has been undertaken to use this technique in an automated fashion through short range remote sensing on a vehicle. Canopy architectural assessment using cover photography The cover photography technique to measure canopy architecture parameters using gap analysis algorithms does not require expensive instrumentation, but does offer accurate results, comparable to other techniques that use expensive instrumentation (e.g., AccuPAR Ceptometers, LiCOR 2000– 2200) (Fuentes et al. 2008). Our research has applied this technique to grapevines and an automated video analysis method has been developed. This method allows the use of this technique with robots (Fuentes et al. 2013). Also, the algorithm has been applied for the development of a smartphone and tablet application that allows obtaining images, analyses them and sends canopy architecture and leaf area index information to be mapped (Figure 6) (Fuentes et al. 2012b). Further developments of imaging techniques are using high-end security cameras attached to extendable towers that can be attached to an ATV or permanently installed in the vineyard. These can be used to detect disease, growth rate and grape maturity completely remotely. Grape berries’ living tissue assessment A novel berry tissue assessment technique and analysis has been developed, which disclosed the link between grape berries’ living tissue and berry shrivel (Figure 7, see page 44) (Fuentes et al. 2010). This technique can be used to investigate the link between cell death and the development of flavours and aromas in berries that might be favoured in certain grapevine cultivars by mesocarp cell death. This technique has also been used to assess the effects of elevated temperatures on the onset and rate of berry cell death in cultivars, such as Shiraz and Chardonnay (Bonada et al. 2013). Further research has been conducted to V28N3

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develop in-field technology to assess berry cell death non-destructively using hyperspectral cameras and impedance spectrometry (Dr Roberta De Bei, Sigfredo Fuentes, Professor Tyerman, Professor Javier Tardaguila). CONCLUSIONS New techniques resulting from the VOF initiatives described in this paper are currently being tested in commercial vineyards in Australia and Chile as part of a beta testing stage. Some of these techniques will soon be commercially available to growers to be applied in the field (e.g., WPA and CanopyLAI). In the meantime, the international VOF is currently working on other emerging technologies with exciting preliminary results that will add to the newlydeveloped tools. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Figure 7. Berry cell death analysis using Matlab® programming techniques for image analysis (Fuentes et al. 2010).

We acknowledge important funding contributions to the Australian VOF from the Waite Research Institute (WRI) of The University of Adelaide and the Wine2030 program from the same university.

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LITERATURE REVIEW

procedure for estimating the leaf area index (LAI) of woodland ecosystems using digital imagery, MATLAB programming and its application to an examination of the relationship between remotely sensed and field measurements of LAI. Functional Plant Biology 35(10):1070-1079.

Anderson, K.; Findlay, C.; Fuentes, S. and Tyerman, S.D. (2008) Viticulture, wine and climate change. Commissioned Paper for the Garnaut Climate Change Review, June, accessible at www. garnautreview.org.au

De Bei, R.; Cozzolino, D.; Sullivan, W.; Cynkar, W.; Fuentes, S.; Dambergs, R.; Pech, J. and Tyerman, S. (2011) Non-destructive measurement of grapevine water potential using near infrared spectroscopy. Australian Journal of Grape and Wine Research 17(1):62-71. Deitch, M.J. (2009) Hydrologic impacts of small-scale instream diversions for frost and heat protection in the California wine country. River research and applications 25(2):118. Fuentes, S. (2005) Precision irrigation for grapevines (Vitis vinifera L.) under RDI and PRD, University of Western Sydney, Australia.

Jones, H.G.; Stoll, M.; de Sousa, C.; Manuela Chaves, M. and Grant, O. (2002) Use of infrared thermography for monitoring stomatal closure in the field: application to grapevine. Journal of Experimental Botany 53(378):2249-2260.

Fuentes, S.; Rogers, G.; Conroy, J.; OrtegaFarias, S. and Acevedo, C. (2003) Soil wetting pattern monitoring is a key factor in precision irrigation of grapevines. IV International Symposium on Irrigation of Horticultural Crops 664:245-252. Fuentes, S.; Rogers, G.; Jobling, J.; Conroy, J.; Camus, C.; Dalton, M. and Mercenaro, L. (2006) A soil-plant-atmosphere approach to evaluate the effect of irrigation/fertigation strategy on grapevine water and nutrient uptake, grape quality and yield. V International Symposium on Irrigation of Horticultural Crops 792:297-303. Fuentes, S.; Sullivan, W.; Tilbrook, J. and Tyerman, S. (2010) A novel analysis of grapevine berry tissue demonstrates a variety-dependent correlation between tissue vitality and berry shrivel. Australian Journal of Grape and Wine Research 16(2):327-336.

Fuentes, S.; De Bei, R.; Pech, J. and Tyerman, S. (2012a) Computational water stress indices obtained from thermal image analysis of grapevine canopies. Irrigation Science 30(6):523-536.

Hannah, L.; Roehrdanz, P.; Makihiko, I.; Shepard, A.; Shaw, M.; Tabor, G.; Zhi, L.; Marquet, P. and Hijmans, R. (2013) Climate change, wine and conservation. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Fuentes, S.; De Bei, R.; Pozo, C. and Tyerman, S.D. (2012b) Development of a smartphone application to characterise temporal and spatial canopy architecture and leaf area index for grapevines. Wine & Viticulture Journal (6)56-60. Fuentes, S.; Palmer, A.; Taylor, D.; Zeppel, M.; 3 6 2 7 Q M_ A d _ 1 3 0 x 9 0 Whitley, R. and Eamus, D. (2008) An automated

Howden, M.; Ash, A.; Barlow, E.W.R. and Booth, T. (2003) An overview of the adaptive capacity of the Australian agricultural sector to climate change options, cost and benefit. Canberra.

Fuentes, S.; Poblete-Echeverria, C.; OrtegaFarias, S.; Tyerman, S.D. and De Bei, R. (2013) Automated estimation of leaf area index (LAI) from grapevine canopies using cover photography, video and computational analysis methods. Australial Journal of Grape and Wine Research, accepted.

Bonada, M.; Sadras, V. and Fuentes, S. (2013) Effect of elevated temperature on the onset and rate of mesocarp cell death in berries of Shiraz and Chardonnay and its relationship with berry shrivel. Australian Journal of Grape and Wine Research 19(1):87-94.

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Orang, M.N.; Scott Matyac, J. and Snyder, R.L. (2008) Survey of irrigation methods in California in 2001. Journal of irrigation and drainage engineering 134(1):96-100. Snyder, R.; Plas, M. and Grieshop, J. (1996) Irrigation methods used in California: grower survey. Journal of irrigation and drainage engineering 122(4):259-262. Stoll, M. and Jones, H.G. (2005) Infrared thermography as a viable tool for monitoring plant stress. XIV International GESCO Viticulture Congress, Geisenheim, Germany, 23-27 August 2005, 211-218. Stoll, M. and Jones, H.G. (2007) Thermal imaging as a viable tool for monitoring plant stress. Journal International Des Sciences De La Vigne Et Du Vin 41(2):77-84. Stoll, M.; Schultz, H.R. and BerkelmannLoehnertz, B. (2008) Thermal sensitivity of grapevine leaves affected by Plasmopara viticola and water stress. Vitis 47(2):133-134. Webb, L.; Whetton, P.; Bhend, J.; Darbyshire, R.; Briggs, P. and Barlow, E.W.R. (2012) Earlier winegrape ripening driven by climatic warming and drying and management practices. Nature Climate Change 2(4):259-264.

Hayman, P.T.; Leske, P. and Nidumolu, U. (2009) Webb, L.B. (2008) Climate change and winegrape Climate change and viticulture. Informing the 2 0 1 3 - 0 4 - 2 4 T1 0 : 0 0 : 4 5 + 1 0 : 0 0 decision-making at a regional level. quality in Australia. Climate research 36(2):99. WVJ

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