Multispectral imaging systems are widely used in remote sensing and applied to viticulture context for the canopy characterization. Until now, this technique was scarcely used in proximal sensing to characterize vine canopy. Yet the results of field tests led in fixed position have revealed its capacity to estimate the leaf area. The aim of this project is to assess the opportunity to use multispectral imaging system as an embedded sensor for vine canopy characterization.

Frost damage to grapevines is a threat in many wine grape production regions of the world. Improved information regarding frost temperature conditions will help farmers understand current conditions during frost risk nights and select the most appropriate strategies to avoid cold damage to their crops.

For grapevines, monitoring canopy architecture is important to assess growth, vigour and light transmission through the canopy to the developing buds and inflorescences, and fruit zone. These parameters, that reflect canopy development, can be correlated to yield, grape quality and productivity.

Recent research works highlighted large variability in rotundone concentration – the main compound responsible for peppery aroma in red wines – within a vineyard block associated with variation in land underlying the vineyard and vine water deficit. In order to further study and determine practical ways to map rotundone spatial variability, a study was carried on a 0.41 ha Duras vineyard from the South West of France under oceanic climatic influence.

Computer vision systems are powerful tools to assess canopy status, fruit grading, and yield in agriculture. This work shows the application of machine vision techniques for grapevine phenotyping under laboratory and field conditions. The first approach aimed at determining automatically the number of flowers per inflorescence using a low cost camera under field conditions.

Precision viticulture consists in using ICT (Information and Communication Technology) to implement more specific and better targeted technical vine practices. With proxy-detection, precision viticulture mobilizes on-board sensors, computers, and GNSS positioning.

The Directive 2009/128/EC on the sustainable use of the plant protection products in viticulture, has recently been fully implemented in Italy (February 12, 2014) with the requirements laid down by the National Action Plan (NAP). In this perspective, the sustainable use of plant protection products in vine protection, must increasingly conform to the best technologies in the vineyard aimed at reducing risk in respect of operators in the vineyard and the resident population, the preservation of the environment and beauty landscape and protection’s request of the economically sustainable grape vine.

In this study it was measured the gasoil consumption induced by the use of different machines designed to do the same job in the vineyard, but using different technologies. The aim was to identify the most economical way of accomplishing a mechanical task, but also to quantify the fuel savings we can expect with appropriate settings on the tractor and on the machine.

Geographical information systems (GIS) offer an important tool to support grape-growers’ decisions, allowing for visualization in an adequate geographical support of information on the behaviour of his vineyards. However, commercial GIS solutions are usually beyond the reach of the average grape-grower, both because of their cost and because of the training needed to master it.

In the last decades, the remarkable development of new technologies and the growing demand for greater competitiveness and sustainability have led to a great interest in precision viticulture, which proposes a differentiated agronomic management of vineyards based on the spatial-temporal variability of vegetative development, production, and quality of the grapes.

In the light of the need to practically improve the environmental performance in viticulture, the overall aim of the present work was to develop a monitoring and decision support system for stakeholders in the viti-vinicultural value chain. This was achieved by adopting a multi-disciplinary approach which included (1) management zone delineation, (2) deployment of sensing and telecommunication infrastructures, and (3) development of an information platform to incorporate and visualize data and assist grape-growers in decision making.

The grape harvester machine is an essential compound of the vineyard equipment. There has been a constant progress in the performance of mechanical harvesting, in terms of quality and respect of the berries. The three main manufacturers have constantly improved the picking head of their respective machines, but the main progress has come from the sorting systems they have implemented on board.

Non-destructive mapping of the leaf nitrogen index (NBI1) at bunch closure was carried out at the ‘Fattoria di Magliano’ winery (South Tuscany, Italy) on two consecutive years, 2013 and 2014, on Vermentino cv. using the Multiplex fluorescence optical sensor. Measurements were performed manually on a 1 ha vineyard using a 15m x 15m grid, detecting leaves with similar age of three adjacent vines on two contiguous rows.