Keen to Protect Your Vines from Frost and Reduce Pesticide Usage?

A remote monitoring system can be your “eyes and ears” on your vineyard 24/7, giving you the information you need for efficient management of resources and maximising return on investment. Monitor What Matters to You Solar/battery-powered sensors send data through either cellular, Wi-Fi, or ethernet to your dashboard on your PC/mobile device.

• Save Water: Soil moisture sensors enable you to irrigate just when needed
• Alerts when frost is a threat: Sent via text/email
• Intelligent spraying: Models warn you of the risk of disease or pest emergence.
• Weather monitoring & forecast for your micro-climate: Calculations for evapotranspiration, leaf wetness, wet bulb, dew point etc.

Eliminate the guesswork: customisable charts and alerts make sense of

Thinking of growing grapes for wine-making? Rick is a home wine-making enthusiast and creator of Smartwinemaking.com. He started his own 'high-tech micro vineyard' at his home and chose HOBO Data Loggers to get a better grip on the local climate and seasonal extremes.

The moisture and nutrient status of your soil are key pieces of information for every grower or greenkeeper. Armed with this knowledge, you can precisely tailor your irrigation and fertilisation program to suit your crop's requirements – this leads to less wastage in terms of costs of inputs, and achieving optimum quality and yields.

Soil Moisture (Volumetric Water Content)

The volumetric water content (VWC) is the ratio of the volume of water compared to the total soil volume. At saturation, the volumetric water content (expressed as a percentage) will equal the per cent pore space of the soil.

In-field soil moisture content will range from air-dry to saturation. However, plants cannot extract all the water in a saturated soil and can extract none of the water in an airdry soil. Instead, two other moisture content levels, field capacity and permanent wilting point are often used to indicate the upper and lower limit of plant available water.

Laurent Souron is a Research Analyst forecasting supply and demand for the cocoa and coffee markets. He needed “objective, comparable soil moisture measurements to better assess crop potential over time” and purchased a FieldScout TDR100 soil moisture meter after locating EnviroMonitors online.

The TDR100 is used for crop surveys in West Africa and South America. According to Laurent “having objective rather than subjective measurements is a plus when presenting results to outsiders”. He is also finding that “the TDR100 has become a key part of our forecasting operations, it is sturdy and simple to use”.

“We are more than happy with our TDR meter”, he said, and he has already recommended the FieldScout TDR100 to another company to help with their forecasting operations.

Howard Corney is the owner of Court Gardens, a 12 acre vineyard located in Ditchling, East Sussex. Howard started his working life as an architect before he and his wife, who worked as a designer, decided to embark on a new career together as sheep farmers. Sixteen years ago they decided to move to their current location in Ditchling and have since planted a vineyard.

Court Garden Vineyard was planted back in 2005 and has been producing and selling English sparkling wine from the farm and local shops since November 2009. The site which is known to have existed as a farm since Saxon times is surrounded by grazing fields with residential Ditchling to the South Side.

Howard purchased a Davis Vantage Pro 2 from EnviroMonitors for use specifically on his vineyard. His main factors in buying