But in this domain commercial solutions are slow to come

The drought which struck the California for the third year in a row sowed panic among the farmers in the Central Valley. But for many winemakers of Napa Valley, the famous wine region which place its slopes north of San Francisco, it is an opportunity to develop irrigation methods. "We realized that less it irrigates, better it is for the vine", said Austin Peterson, Winemaker of Ovid Vineyards, a small range of Napa Valley high domain (6,000 bottles per vintage, $ 170 bottle).

Last year, Ovid equipped with 20 of its vineyards of a technology for measuring flow of SAP developed by Fruition Sciences to arid regions. "We have finally been able to truly understand the impact of different strategies of irrigation and transform the poor vineyard parcel model of excellence," continues Austin Peterson.

18 Kilometers from there, Hartwell vineyards, another small top line domain (30,000 bottles a year, to $ 150 bottle), had still not received a single drop of water, at the end of August, on the eve of the grape harvest. "Before, the water was poorly used and I lost lots of fruit." "This year, the rate of wilting declined, the berries are smaller and much more fine tannins", says Benoît Touquette, the winemaker of Hartwell trained in Bordeaux and one of the nine California customers of Fruition Sciences.

The pulse of the vine

Founded in Berkeley in 2007 by the oenologist Thibaut Scholasch and the French Sébastien Payen, the start-up has developed a solution that takes the pulse of the vine in real time and delivers information on the Internet in a directly readable format by the winegrower. Every fifteen minutes, sensors placed on the foot of vine measure the physiological state of the plant with the flow of SAP. The data are transmitted by wireless to power a server who deducted two indicators: evapotranspiration and transpiration of plant.

"Our technology is not intended to increase the yield of grapes but to improve the quality of the wine, says Sébastien Payen.". This tool is very new for the oenologists, so much of our work is to train them and advise them.The introduction of technology in the vineyards is not a new phenomenon. Measurements in real time of the moisture of the soil and the diameter of the trunk, allied to the weather data, are a more widespread practice, as well as the weekly assessment of water potential of the vine by removal of leaves and the extent of ripening of the fruit by infrared gun. In Australia, researchers interested for several years in the application to the vine of the measure of the flow of SAP, used long by arborists. But in this domain, commercial solutions are slow to come.

Research and development of Fruition Sciences have been funded to the tune of 300,000 euros two ministerial support for innovation OSEO agency contributions. The company is now markets of southern Europe (Spain and Italy) and Languedoc-Roussillon, where irrigation is not prohibited. Only problem, the rates are very high: between 5,000 and 7,000 dollars for four feet of vine. Start-up wants to improve its technology. The objective is to provide information for the whole of a parcel from measurements made on a few square meters.