The UK Agri-Tech Centre attended the Vineyard & Winery Show at the Kent County Showground, an unmissable event for anyone working in viticulture in the UK and abroad.
This event provided a fantastic opportunity to explore the future of UK viticulture, as the UK Agri-Tech Centre proudly supported their partners from the Vineyard Information System for Technology and Automation (VISTA) and Vineyard Frost Forecasting projects. The event brought together industry leaders to discuss challenges and showcase innovative technology solutions that are shaping the future of vineyards.
Highlights from the event included:
- A panel discussion led by Vineyard Frost project partners to address how climate change is impacting UK vineyards and the role of technology in mitigating these effects. With a packed audience, the discussion underscored the urgency of acting now to protect the future of viticulture.
- Professor Steve Dorling from Weatherquest and Dr Alistair Nesbitt from Vinescapes provided compelling insights into future climate risks. These included increasing frost threats, disrupted growing seasons and fluctuating yields that can range from bumper harvests to significant losses. This variability underscores the need for strategic resilience planning.
- Phoebe French of WineGB elaborated on the Vineyard Frost project’s objectives, highlighting the development of a frost damage risk model. Mark Laughton from Plumpton College detailed the model’s progress, which will help vineyard owners better anticipate and mitigate frost events.
- Ian Beecher-Jones of JoJo’s Vineyard brought practical insights on using technology and precision viticulture to act swiftly during climatic challenges, emphasising the importance of infrastructure mapping and data management.
The Show exemplified the collaborative spirit needed to address these challenges. A key focus for the UK Agri-Tech Centre was gathering insights through their ongoing surveys, aimed at understanding how vineyard owners and managers monitor frost risks and manage the data they collect—critical areas in adapting to a changing climate.
With funding from Innovate UK and the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (Defra), the Vineyard Frost and VISTA projects have launched a joint survey to support their work. The Vineyard Frost project aims to revolutionise frost-related crop protection through hyper-localised and variety-specific frost risk forecasts, while the VISTA project aims to embrace precision agriculture by creating a data-led system for accurate vineyard infrastructure mapping. The survey aims to explore the systems currently used by owners and managers.
