Viticulture app part of award-winning research

Since its launch, the VitiCanopy smartphone app has been embraced with enthusiasm. The Apple version has been downloaded more than 2000 times worldwide since its release in October 2015, a much-awaited Android version is now available, and response from users has been very positive.

What most pleases Dr Cassandra Collins, however, is that it is doing what it’s supposed to do and more. ‘I think we’re coming up with new ways to use it – new approaches to how you can interpret the data and apply that to the management of a vineyard’, she said.

The app, which allows users to monitor vines and manage the required balance between vegetative growth and fruit production, is the centrepiece of a four-year project at the University of Adelaide, funded by Wine Australia, designed to identify the canopy parameters that most accurately indicate optimal vine performance.

Cassandra is the Principal Investigator, working closely with Chief Investigator and Postdoctoral Research Fellow Dr Roberta De Bei. Their successful collaboration was acknowledged late last year when they were jointly named Researcher of the Year in the second Australian Women in Wine Awards (AWIWA).

It’s been rewarding if sometimes intense work, with the pair involved in everything from monitoring and measuring in vineyards to making wine and sensory testing. They ran six trial sites around South Australia and collected some additional data from New South Wales.

The catalysts for the project were a mutual interest in vine balance and canopy management and the right timing. Roberta was involved with the development of an early version of the app with Dr Sigfredo Fuentes and Professor Steve Tyerman in a separate project at the university and saw the potential to do more with it.

And they also bring perspectives from different hemispheres. Cassandra is a graduate of the University of Adelaide, while Roberta completed her degrees in her native Italy. Her PhD involved a six-month stint in Adelaide, and she quickly returned.

What continues to emerge from their research is the strong relationship between leaf area, canopy porosity and the quality measures that are linked to colour and other sensory attributes. 

‘We’ve now got numerous seasons of data from numerous sites and regions; the numbers may not be the same in every situation but the relationships keep coming out’, Roberta said.

‘Certain leaf area and exposure levels appear to result in a type of quality. What you can do is generate a history for your site and test where you are at in the season and what you might need to do to manage it.’

That is where the app has proved so valuable. It allows users to generate images and data from past years to allow comparisons that can support decision making.

‘One of the things that needs to happen next is managing all the data the app generates to help users create a history of their vineyards’, Cassandra said. ‘It’s never going to be a tool where you press a button and walk away; you still must use your viticultural knowledge to get the most benefit, and hopefully we can help users with that through extension.’ 

‘The other side of this is that we’re hoping to see a similar approach to estimating pruning weight – capturing the capacity of the vines and what they can deliver for you’, Roberta said. ‘Our intention is for that to be an added feature; it just needs more validation.’ 

AWIWA organiser Jane Thomson said the advisory board felt introducing a research category in 2016 was an important step in the evolution of the awards ‘as the work of our researchers is so integral to the success of the entire wine sector’. 

‘Roberta and Cassandra were not only able to aptly demonstrate the impact of their project for our domestic wine community but also the global potential for this app,’ she said.

The other finalists in the Researcher of the Year category were Associate Professor Kerry Wilkinson from the University of Adelaide and Dr Dimitra Capone from the Australian Wine Research Institute.