The objective of the project SISTEMIO is the analysis and validation of a vineyard management system that allows the reduction of the phytosanitary treatments applied in the vineyard in Catalonia. The SISTEMIO project is one of the 23 projects approved in 2016 by the Departament d’Agricultura, Ramaderia, Pesca i Alimentació de la Generalitat de Catalunya in the program for the creation of innovative operating groups addressed to the agri-food and forestry sector

The project, which started in April 2016, will last two years and is coordinated by the Catalan Wine Cluster Innovi (www.innovi.cat). In this project participate as beneficiaries the wineries Raimat (www.raimat.com) and Gramona (www.gramona.com) and the Plant Protection Associations of Sant Martí and Sant Llorenc, those located in the Penedès area, and also has the collaboration of the winery Pares Balta (www.paresbalta.com). The technical validation is carried out by the Institut Català de la Vinya i el Vi INCAVI (http://incavi.gencat.cat), and has the support of the Health Plant Service of the Generalitat de Catalunya.

The project is introducing tools for collecting and analyzing data in a large area of vineyards in Catalonia. Specifically there are installed 18 measuring points in as many fields belonging to Raimat in D.O. Costers del Segre, and Gramona, ADV Sant Martí and ADV Sant Llorenç in D.O. Penedès. The stations installed collect each hour and accurately in each plot the data from rainfall, relative humidity, temperature and leaf wetness. This data is sent in real time to the analysis and management platform Vite.net, property of the Italian company Horta SRL (www.horta-srl.it). This processing software in the cloud, one of the most advanced that exist today in Europe, estimates based on the received data and the epidemiological models the risk of occurrence in the coming days of the plague of downy mildew and powdery mildew on the plot. As a result the crop manager is able to decide the best time for the application of phytosanitary treatments. It is estimated that having this information will allow a reduction of the treatments applied in the plot in between a 20% and a 40%.

TAMIC has carried out the installation and maintenance of the data collection stations in each one of the plots, and the connection to the Vite.net system. It is therefore a turnkey solution and a comprehensive support to end users.

In the first season the results have been very satisfactory, obtaining a good correlation between system estimations and field observations. In the next season several technical improvements will be introduced an even a better correlation and a higher treatments reduction will be achieved and, therefore, a higher cost reduction and a production even more respectful with our environment.