Precision Agriculture in Fruit and Winegrowing starts tomorrow

The II Workshop on Precision Agriculture in Fruit and Winegrowing begins on the 5th and continues until the 7th, Friday, at the headquarters of Embrapa Uva e Vinho, in Bento Gonçalves, RS. Embrapa's Precision Agriculture Network will present the advances and possibilities that the use of this technology brings to the agricultural area. The event is still open for registration at

According to Rosemary Hoff, researcher at Embrapa Uva e Vinho and coordinator of the meeting, precision agriculture (PA) is relatively new and comprises the integrated use of information and technologies for planning and managing an agricultural crop, taking into account the variability of the production factors of a crop in space and time. Precision fruit growing began with work in citrus and viticulture for winemaking, but it took time to become applicable to agricultural activity in general, as extensive research and testing is required. “After a decade, we already have techniques, software and equipment adapted for the use of fruit growers in Brazil, such as field sensors and geotechnologies, which will certainly make a difference for producers”, assesses the researcher.

According to Luciano Gebler, researcher at Embrapa Uva e Vinho, and organizer of the event, “the workshop aims to bring to these productive areas the possibility of expanding their organizational and production capacity and, at the same time, reducing the environmental impacts traditionally caused by the activity agricultural". According to his analysis, the meeting will enable knowledge about new technologies that will be presented by researchers who work with precision fruit growing and viticulture in Brazil, giving the chance to bring the productive sector closer to research.
 
The AP intends to leverage the organization of the fruit growing sector, especially apples, allowing the spatial variability of productive areas to be managed. It can be applied to properties of any size, through the organization and collection of data in the field and generation of information.” It will be a great tool to increase the efficiency of the sector, especially in key factors such as management of the production environment and use of labor, helping the producer in decision-making. Precision agriculture aims at more detailed management of the agricultural production system as a whole, not only in the applications of inputs or various mappings, but of the processes involved in production. This set of tools for agriculture can make use of GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite System), GIS (Geographic Information System), instruments and sensors for measuring or detecting parameters or targets of interest in the agroecosystem (soil, plant , insects and diseases), geostatistics and mechatronics.
 
But AP is not only related to the use of high-tech tools, as its fundamentals can be used in the day-to-day life of properties through greater organization and control of activities, expenses and productivity in each area. The use of differentiation already occurs in the division and location of crops within properties, in the division of plots or paddocks, or simply in the identification of “spots” that differ from the general pattern. From this point of view, the differentiated treatment of each area is already the application of the AP concept.
 
Remote sensing, for example, uses satellite images and elevation models that are made using radar images that can be obtained free of charge and also with field sensors, such as spectroradiometers. “This is an area that Embrapa Uva e Vinho works on in partnership with the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul and Unisinos. These field sensors simulate what satellites capture, such as NDVI sensors. The geographic information system, in turn, is a system that allows information generated during field trips, research and crop control to be placed on maps. In viticulture and fruit growing, in the case of apple, these two major technical areas (remote sensing and GIS) have to control the crop geographically in time and space, within a plot, and between plots through the capture of frequent images, following the phenological cycle of the crop”, adds Hoff.
 
Research activities for wine with AP began in 2010, through research into the georeferencing of vines in Vale dos Vinhedos. Determination of profiles and analysis of samples and soil electrical conductivity, vegetation index by normalized difference, leaf chlorophyll, petiole mineral analysis, physicochemical composition of grape must and wine, sensory characteristics of wine and plant vigor . Part of the results were spatialized, but there are others yet to be considered. Within this work, some previous results were obtained by researchers from two Embrapa units (Embrapa Uva e Vinho, Alberto Miele and Embrapa Clima Temperado, José Maria Filippini Alba and Carlos Alberto Flores, the latter now retired) who analyzed the soil in 10 units mapping project in Vale dos Vinhedos by the company Miolo.