An innovative forest forecasting and management project which is titled ‘Smarter Forecasting, Communication and Management of Frost Risk in Vineyards’ has successfully secured over £300,000 in funding from Innovate UK and the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA).
The project which is led by sensor manufacturer Terraprima, and Agri-EPI Centre (now part of UK Agri-Tech Centre), supported by Plumpton College, Vinescapes, Vinewatch, WeatherQuest and Wines of Great Britain (WineGB), will help to aid the development of domestic viticulture, the UK’s expanding agricultural sector, with the potential to revolutionise frost-related crop protection.
This project will help to create highly localised, site-specific and variety specific frost risk forecasts, enabling vineyard managers to make informed, targeted and sustainable decisions when responding to frost events. The forecasting will be available through an app which will deliver frost alerts to mobile devices to allow growers to identify targeted intervention methods that are best suited to the forecast conditions.
UK vineyards are expected to remain vulnerable to frost events as climate change is causing warmer springs and earlier budburst. This project will enable vine growers to reduce the threat of yield loss, by taking on a more targeted approach by focusing on risk areas and the intervention techniques based on the forecasting conditions.
Ben Gillingham, Managing Director of Terraprima, said:
“This important and exciting project brings together some of the leading players in UK viticulture to improve the sector’s resilience against one of the greatest yield threats we face. The Terraprima Ladybird is ideal for accurately capturing the highly localised climate data required for accurate frost forecasting and we look forward to helping protect UK vines both during and after the project.”
