Interactions Between Grapevine Physiology, Vineyard Managemnet, and Precision Viticulture

Question 1

What are the four areas of Precision viticulture/agriculture

Answer 1

1. Soil monitoring
2. Crop monitoring
3. Monitoring of yield and fruit composition
4. Site specific management

Question 2

What are the 4 expectations for precision viticulture

Answer 2

1. Increase productivity
2. Increase quality
3. Lower Production Cost
4. Lower environmental impact

Question 3

What are the three ways that PV can affect both production costs and revenues?

Answer 3

1. Increase of productivity with the same input, better allocation
2. Same yield with lower input
3. Increasing of productivity with lower input

Question 4

What are the three questions that need to be answered before adopting a PV approach?

Answer 4

1. What is the level of variability in plant and soil?
2. What is the influence of this variability on yield and fruit composition (wine quality)?
3. Which technologies should be used for a profitable vineyard management?

Question 5

What is spatial variability

Answer 5

Spatial variability is the variation of any parameter related to plants and soil in three dimensions (length, width, depth) of a given area. Based on different aspects all fields are variable: soil fertility, water availability, texture, topography, pests, and vigor

Question 6

Discuss Temporal variability and its importance for PV

Answer 6

Soil and crop features can vary overtime. Some aspects are stable, such as soil texture and organic matter content, however moisture and nitrates can vary rapidly. This influences PV decisions such as planning and sampling

Question 7

4 steps of PV

Answer 7

1. Monitoring
2. Data Processing
3. Decision/Action
4. Check

Question 8

Two types of PV maps

Answer 8

1. Vigor maps
2. Prescription maps

Question 9

2 main pros of VRT

Answer 9

VRT (Variable Rate Technologies)

1. More effective and specific management of different cultural practices
2. Reduce within-field variability and imporve vine balance

Question 10

Discuss within-field variability and two points of the hypothesis

Answer 10

It is a recurring problem in many vineyards that needs to be studied for a most efficient vineyard management

1. Variability depends on different soil properties
2. VRT could improve attention to genotype-environment interactions as well as vineyard sustainability.

Question 11

What is remote sensing

Answer 11

It refers to a set of techniques and tools used in order to acquire qualitative and quantitative information about certain object without coming in contact with them.

Question 12

How does remote sensing work, what is it based on?

Answer 12

Remote sensing is based on the electromagnetic energy, emitted from the sun, earth vegetation or emitted by radar or laser instruments

Question 13

Where are the sensors located?

Answer 13

The sensors could be a few meters away or hundreds of kilometers away from the object depending on if the sensor is on the earth’s surface or installed on aircrafts or satellites

Question 14

what are the three types of RS image resolutions?

Answer 14

1. Spatial Resolution: Refers to the size of the smallest object which can be observed in remotely sensed images.
2. Spectral Resolution: Refers to the ability of the sensor to define the ranges of wavelengths
3. Revisit Period (Time): Is the time elapsed between observations of the same point on Earth by a satellite

Question 15

Remote sensed images can be mapped, what can they map and what do they show?

Answer 15

1. Vegetative status
2. Instantaneous water stress

Ground trouthing allows for new prescription maps concerning Nitrogen requirements and water availability in the soil.

Question 16

What are the Vegetation indices for Remote sensing?

Answer 16

Based off of the electromagnetic spectrum we label different bands being GREEN, RED, and NIR (Near infrared). The Ratio Vegetation Index or RVI is calculated as NIR - RED ratio (reflectance)

Question 17

What is NDVI

Answer 17

Normalized Difference Vegetative Index

NIR - RED
————– = NDVI
NIR + RED

Question 18

What is the overall best Platform for RS

Answer 18

Aircraft

Question 19

What is Proximal Sensing and what are the 5 things it can do

Answer 19

Proximal sensing and when a sensor is placed on a tractor or vehicle and driven through the rows of a vineyard.

1. Canopy Index
2. Surface Temperature
3. Canopy Distance
4. Environmental variability such as relative humidity and Air temp
5. Mapping

Question 20

What is a Point Quadrant Analysis?

What are the four things that it can show?

Answer 20

When a vertical (depending on training) square frame is place on a row. It can be used to show 4 things
1. Internal leave %
2. LLN (Leaf Layer Number)
3. Canopy gaps (Porosity)
4. Assessment of plant from setting wire to top of canopy

Question 21

What are the main trends/ correlation between canopy index and canopy gaps %, LLN, and Interior Leaves %

Why is this important

Answer 21

Canopy Index and Canopy Gaps %: Negative Linear
Canopy Index and LLN: Positive Linear
Canopy Index and Interior Leaves %: Positive Linear

This is important because it is a direct way to measure vine vigor at high resolution.

Question 22

Why can ground trouthing also be important despite canopy index measures?

Answer 22

Despite Canopy index as being a direct way to measure vine vigor, ground trouthing is useful for estimating yield in a vineyard if we already know bunch number, average bunch weight, and productivity in different vineyard zones.