PERSPECTIVES 15 AW DECEMBER 2021
Industrial Sensors Boost Vineyard Data By David Greenfield
Editor-in-Chief/Director of Content
W
hen most people think of vineyards, thoughts of a lazy, sunny afternoon enjoying select wines tend to come to mind. For the owner and operators, however, the vineyard is but the first step in the production of their beverage. That’s why increasing amounts of industrial automation technology are being applied to wine-producing operations. Bouchaine Vineyards is one of the latest examples of a vineyard adopting industrial automation technology with its implementation of Cisco Industrial Asset Vision sensors to track data throughout its 100+ acres in the Carneros AVA (American Viticultural Area), which includes parts of Sonoma and Napa counties in California. Chris Kajani, Bouchaine winemaker and general manager, said, “For hundreds of years, much of grape growing has been based on anecdotal knowledge shared between generations of winegrowers, along with visual cues taken by walking the vineyards. Now this knowledge, which is so central to the traditions of great wines, can be digitized. This automatic accumulation of data with real time dashboards will give us insight across the lifetime of the vineyard. Cisco sensor technology allows us to gather data in real time, bringing us the ability to make site-specific grape growing decisions year after year based on our
vineyard’s microclimates.” More specifically, Cisco sensors are used to collect temperature, light, humidity, wind, and water over the course of the growing season. According to Cisco, the sensors are advanced enough to A Cisco Industrial Asset Vision sensor track details such as the in the field at Bouchaine Vineyards. amount of light hitting individual grapevines within humidity), gateways that collect data from each block, offering key insights into the tanthe sensors (which come from Cisco with batnin development of the grapes. This kind of teries included), and a cloud-based dashboard information enables Bouchaine to refine decion which to view the resulting data. sions on irrigation, leafing, and fruit thinning. The ruggedized sensors and gateways that Throughout the 2021 growing season, Boucomprise Cisco Industrial Asset Vision are dechaine monitored temperature, light, and husigned to withstand temperature swings, rain, midity of individual vineyard blocks in more and wind. According to Cisco, the gateways detail than they ever had before using Cisco’s can connect sensors spread over a large area, sensor technologies. reducing the number of gateways a user will “The Cisco sensors are helping us preserve need to buy and maintain. one of our most precious resources—water,” Speaking to Cisco Industrial Asset Vision’s Kajani said. “We’re using the data to water ease of installation, Kajani said, “Installing the only when and where it’s absolutely necessensors and gateways was as simple as scansary. The sensor data gives us peace of mind ning their bar codes. The whole solution was that we’ll see changes in the vineyard when up and running within an hour.” there’s still time to take action.” Based on results gathered during the 2021 Cisco Industrial Asset Vision is an all-in-one growing season, Bouchaine is planning to inproduct that includes different kinds of indusstall more sensors to understand the environtrial sensors (for example, temperature, light, ment in smaller sections of the vineyard.
To watch a video report on this story, visit awgo.to/1290.
Wines from Bouchaine Vineyards.
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