Winemaker improves vineyard using Internet of Things скачать в хорошем качестве

Winemaker improves vineyard using Internet of Things

(18 Jun 2018) LEAD IN A winemaker in Spain's northeastern Aragon region is using the Internet of Things to modernise a 900-year-old tradition. An app has been developed to harness data more efficiently and monitor the vineyards more closely than ever before . STORY-LINE Wine made in Ayles, a sun-roasted, red-soil estate in northeast Spain, comes with an enviable pedigree. Monks made full-bodied reds here for five centuries after the Moors were swept out of Aragon. Its bottles carry the coveted 'Vino de Pago' label, one of 14 estates in the entire country that has its own quality classification. Still made in the 12th Century building once used by the Cistercian monks, the wines of Ayles are rooted in the region's history. But the heart of its operation is now run on innovative tech. Watching over the vines are 5-foot (1.5-metre) posts or 'stations', bristling with sensors, which send plant and climate data to the cloud that is ploughed into models to optimise every aspect of the business. The stations' gauges and gizmos measure two dozen variables, from temperature, air and soil humidity to wind speed, foliage conditions and soil nutrient levels. "It allows us to know within 15 days, from mid-May till the end of May, what the September harvest is going to be like," says chief technical advisor Julio Prieto. "So the winery can use those three months to make strategic decisions." Such decisions include things like when to hire seasonal workers, how to prepare for a disease outbreak and working out whether there will be glut in grapes produced plus how that might affect prices.   The winery partnered with two tech firms based in the nearby regional capital Zaragoza, remOT Technologies and Libelium, for the hardware and Internet-of-Things technology, cloud use, and modelling.   "What's new here, the novelty is that the user no longer has to manually gather the data, put it in an Excel sheet and do the math. Everything is done automatically," says Marcos Gimeno, co-founder of RemOT Technologies. "We can give the user maps, graphics, and even reports about the plant evolution compared to previous years, and we can even extrapolate values and show what will happen later on." IoT technology uses networked devices and is commonly associated with fitness trackers and home controls. But it's fast gaining ground in agriculture to meet relentless global demand for higher efficiency with uses like automated irrigation and drone-enabled planting.   Some of the tech used in Ayles is a spin-off of an IoT forest management system in a region of Spain that has been hit over the last 20 years by drought, related crop failure and forest fires. Moneyballing wine-making - putting data at the core of decisions - saw a rapid improvement in efficiency, according to managers who oversee the 47-hectare (115-acre) vineyard, a small slice of the private Ayles farm that is part of an EU-protected nature reserve. Its best known range of wines spell out its name: A de Ayles, Y de Ayles and so on, combining Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon with renowned local grape varieties Garnacha and Tempranillo.   Flanked by the steep San Pablo mountain and the River Huerva, the conditions  make for premium winemaking. But innovation helped the family-owned business cope with weather challenges: sweltering summers and unforgiving cold spells in winter that bring hail storms and frost. "At the end of the day, information is power and that's what this data is giving us: power to know what our vineyard needs at any given moment." Something to drink to. Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork Twitter:   / ap_archive   Facebook:   / aparchives   ​​ Instagram:   / apnews   You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/you...