Wine Australia – wine grape canopy management commercialisation opportunity

Opportunity for

• Agritech solution providers, innovators and commercial partners interested in licensing or partnering to integrate into existing or new platform.

Opportunity description

Industry challenge

Canopy management affects fruit quality (and therefore value), input requirements (water, fertiliser, sprays), disease susceptibility and resilience to climate extremes, yet management decisions are largely based on grower experience alone. In high-production areas the lack of within-in season and benchmark data limits the ability of growers to improve or optimise mechanical management. In areas with manual canopy management the lack of data limits the ability of growers to adjust management to spatial variation in the vineyard. Aerial imaging can be used to estimate canopy size but is expensive and difficult to separate canopy from ground cover. Optimising canopy structure requires three-dimensional information on the canopy not currently available.

Current opportunity

Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) and Wine Australia are seeking engagement from agritech solution providers, innovators and commercial partners interested in licensing or partnering to integrate canopy management technology into an exisiting agritech company with a strong service offering. There is a significant opportunity to co-develop products and services using the technology.

Progress has been made validating the technology in the field:

• Both drone based and LIDAR based methods, testing of full or part block flights at commercial vineyard blocks in Mclaren Vale (two sites) and Coonawarra (two sites).
• Adelaide Hills and Barossa, includes multiple varieties.

Opportunity background

Canopy management technology features and applications so far.

Deployed solution for whole block canopy cover and projected shape mapping:

• whole block RGB image capture using hobby drone (or better)
• photogrammetry based tool creates 3D point cloud at farm base or (preferably) in the cloud
• data analysis pipeline uses 3D data to create digital surface models (DSM) and digital terrain models (DTM) used to separate canopy from ground and determine canopy size and shape properties
• raw or processed data uploaded to cloud service
• georeferenced maps of canopy size and shape properties can be delivered into any ag-tech platform online
• platform provides visual maps, allows for spatial analysis of canopy variability at various levels (panel, row or block) and allows data to be compared (spatially or temporally) with benchmarks and highlights areas of concern.

Deployed solution for whole row or block canopy structure mapping:

• ground vehicle mounted spinning LiDAR captures 3D data (including canopy interior) whilst driving through vineyard
• SLAM tool generates 3D ray cloud at farm base or (preferably) in the cloud
• data analysis pipeline uses ray cloud to determine canopy structural properties (density, size, potential light absorption)
• raw or processed data uploaded to cloud service
• 3D properties reduced to 2D or 1D
• georeferenced maps, row or block summaries can be delivered into any ag-tech online platform
• platform provides visual maps (top-down view or row cross-section), allows data to be compared with benchmarks and highlights areas of concern.