Vineyard Innovative Tool based on the InteGration of Earth Observation Services and in-field Sensors

Project Information

VITIGEOSS

Grant agreement ID: 869565

DOI

10.3030/869565

Project closed

EC signature date 15 April 2020

Start date 1 September 2020

End date 29 February 2024

Funded under

• SOCIETAL CHALLENGES - Climate action, Environment, Resource Efficiency and Raw Materials

Total cost

€ 3 025 557,50

EU contribution

€ 2 631 846,50

Coordinated by

FUNDACIO EURECAT
Spain

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - VITIGEOSS (Vineyard Innovative Tool based on the InteGration of Earth Observation Services and in-field Sensors)

Reporting period: 2022-03-01 to 2024-02-29

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

The VitiGEOSS project objective has been to use European Open Earth Observation services for the improvement of agriculture business operations at an economic, environmental, and local level. To do so, the project has developed an innovative vineyard management solution based on the integration of Earth Observation services and in-field sensors with the objective to increase the resolution and reliability of satellite information applied to the viticulture sector.
The purpose of the VitiGEOSS has been to provide recommendations to winemakers to optimize vineyard management processes. The innovative solution promoted by the project has the objective to respond to future challenges of the worldwide food and wine industry, which requires to intensify the production in a sustainable way, mitigate the effects of climate change, reduce negative environmental externalities, and promote local economic growth.
The three research plots were located in important European viticultural regions (Douro, Portugal; Taurasi DOC areal, Italy; and Juneda, Lleida, Spain), to allow validating VITIGEOSS in different climate conditions, different cultivars, and viticultural strategies.
The different intelligent services released have been:• Weather and climate forecasting• Phenology, Crop status monitoring, Disease and Sustainability management.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

VitiGEOSS project was planned over a period of 42 months that could be divided into three project phases:
- Definition of requirements and design of the technical solutions, including a co-design approach to ensure that the project was aligned to the necessities of the end-users in terms of usability
- Development of the intelligent services, testing, and validation of the VITIGEOSS platform. This phase has followed an iterative approach in which end-users have tested the platform in a real environment.
- Assessment and validation of the platform.
Main achievements:
• Architecture for intelligent services design, according to the requirements and capabilities, together with the APIS’ functionalities, including the detail of the APIs output to be developed, in order to facilitate the interconnections running behind each operation.
• Testing methodology to ensure that each VITIGEOSS intelligent service was performing as expected according to the requirements defined. Also the specific test cases have been implemented to validate the performance of the services in an isolated way, as well as in conjunction with the other services.
• Use case scenarios description, deployment of the VITIGEOSS cloud-based application portal.
• The selection of pilot plots, where the vineyard parcels are situated, with their characteristics, and the experimental designs implemented to collect the data to calibrate, train, fine-tune and validate all the models generated by VITIGEOSS
• Market assessment, where important insights of the wine and precision viticulture market (market size, growth prospects, trends, drivers and challenges) have been identified, IPR management actions, identifying the potential VITIGEOSS project results and their IP protection strategy
• Visual identity and project website set-up, user engagement activities, Communication, and dissemination plan.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

Expected results commited and impact :
O1. To deploy a weather/climate forecast intelligent service exploring the frontiers of sub-seasonal climate predictions and their synthesis with weather forecast and seasonal climate predictions to provide robust forecasts for decision-making processes in the wine sector: For each of the temporal scales (weather, subseasonal and seasonal), the predictions systems were calibrated and downscaled. Real-time operational weather/climate intelligent service was implemented for short-term weather forecasts (MONARCH), sub-seasonal (NCEP CFSv2) and seasonal (ECMWF SEAS5) climate forecasts through the THREDDS server.
O2. To deploy a disease management service capable of launching warning alerts on the appearance of most important diseases based on the symptoms and characteristics of each geographical area and creating contingency plans according to users’ available tools: 2 diseases have been analysed (powdery mildew, downy mildew).
O3. Build a set of Copernicus and GEOSS downstream services integrating satellite with in-situ data to optimize crop management using the highest quality data. Artificial Neural Networks and EO and in-field imagery used to combine novel algorithms to estimate key crop management indicators: Detection and prediction of the phenological phases of the vines: budbreak, flowering, fruit set, veraison, maturity and leaf fall; detection and prediction of the different key crop management indicators (leaf water potential, leaf area index, phenological phases of the vine) and the management and use of data from EOS (Copernicus, GEOSS), including the use of Sentinel-2 Level 1C and EUTMETSAT MSG-CPP.
O4. Establish an integrated, modular management solution for vineyard cultivation in 3 demo-sites: Portugal, Italy, Spain using EOS and in-field monitoring tools: VitiGEOSS provides access to innovative applications for optimizing vineyard management under a single point of entry for selected fields in Portugal, Spain, and Italy. Solutions configurated in the VitiGEOSS portal.
O5. Validation of sustainable wine production indicators via integration of EO and field monitoring techniques to empower decision-makers in the wine sector with the necessary toolbox to make wine production in Europe environmentally and commercially sustainable: Pilot plots have been established, together with the experimental design for field data collection, and the installation of the in-field cameras and machinery sensors.
O6. Develop a successful market entry strategy based on market analysis and stakeholder consultation: Comprehensive analysis of environment forces, market trends, entry barriers, competition, risks, opportunities and the consortium’s resources and constraints done. List of all background IPRs, side ground IPRs, and foreground IPRs reported.
O7. Build capacity among technology developers and commercialisation partners to ensure the usability of the project results. The organisation of 4 workshops (seminars and training courses) on data analysis, satellite data acquisition &probabilistic climate forecast for appropriate decision making, supported with the presence of relevant stakeholders of wine, agricultural sector and EuroGEOSS participants.
The Consortium has been highly active in dissemination and a huge audience has been reached, being up to 33 articles published in printed and online media outlets.
VitiGEOSS media impacts include key sectorial magazines, as InfoWine.com El Correo del Vino, Vinetur, Tecnovino or Mundo Vino.

Vineyard