How to know what’s happening in the vineyard even when you’re not there? – A team from Becej has a solution (PHOTO)

Last year is best forgotten for the viticulturists in certain parts of our country, and this year is not bringing good news either – the estimate is that the yield will be lower by 20%. Unexpectedly, in Sumadija, the harvest started earlier than usual, by two weeks. All this is a result of the weather conditions – from the frost to the tropical temperatures.

The good news is that there is a possibility for you to understand how the climate affects your vine and easily learn what you can do about it. The gratitude goes to the Atfield Technologies team from Becej. They have designed Winessense sensors and app which collect data, provide an insight into the health of the grapevine, enable disease prevention, provide an overview of the climate patters, show when the best time for the harvest is and many other things.

The sensors are designed so that they can be easily and discreetly affixed to the vineyard stakes. From there, they monitor the air temperature and the relative air humidity.

– The sensors are designed and produced in Serbia and they are specifically designed for use in a vineyard. They are charged independently, each though its own miniature solar panel, which is an integral part of each device. They use radio connections to exchange data, so there are no cables which could be damaged or cut. They work constantly, 24 hours, and they don’t require any special maintenance. Similar to them, the app is simple, logical and adapted to vineyards and viticulture – the CEO of Atfield Technologies, Vukasin Pejovic, says for eKapija.

He adds that the only true obstacle to the use is “the decision whether to rely on this solution or keep doing the job based on the experience, feel, expectations and occasional measuring.”

– Apart from that, everything else is fully automatic.

When you have users who renew their subscriptions year after year and recommend your product to their colleagues, it’s clear that your product is good, Pejovic continues.

– What they’re telling us is that they know what is happening in the vineyard even when they’re not there. They know what to expect, whether they have to go to the vineyard and how serious things are. The sensors tell them when the flowering is to happen or when there’s danger of infection. Based on that, they know when to spray, so the protection is optimal, and they also save on chemical products, labor, water, as well as their own time and the time of their workers.
Where do you see the biggest threats to viticulture when it comes to climate change and how can Winessense help?

– Without starting the discussion why the climate is changing, it is obvious even to the regular passers-by that something, if not everything, is changing. Warm winters, springs and summers with terribly dry and terribly humid intervals, long warm autumns, that’s what our climate is now. The key problem will be how to profitably grow quality grapes with things being that changeable and unpredictable year after year. I believe that irrigation systems, shade cloths, artificial lakes for the accumulation of excess water, a detailed monitoring of the data from every part of the vineyard, as well as various other measures, which sound futuristic, will soon become a reality.
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The markets in which Atfield Technologies is present with its product are all the countries of the former Yugoslavia, Romania, Greece, the Czech Republic, the United Kingdom and the United States of America. They regularly get inquests from new markets, but, as our interviewee says, “they can’t satisfy everybody.”

– Simply, every market has its special characteristics, and in order to understand them, it takes time. Something that’s banal today, the language barrier, is, for example, something that is very present in our market. At the same time, there are many more things that are shared between all the markets that we are present in. The way viticulturists and winemakers think is similar everywhere. The principles of doing the job and the priorities they have are similar as well. What’s different is the understanding of the financial aspects of viticulture and capital management – clarifies Pejovic.

When it comes to the plans for the future, he says that they are developing a network of partners in all the wine regions they have reached and in which there is an interest.

– We are doing so with the maximum inclusion of the existing customers. To clarify, the logic behind this is to take what we have already achieved, with the additional advanced climate metrics that we provide, and considerably improve our presence and reach and thereby additionally accelerate the growth of our business operations. We are going toward enabling an ordinary wine buyer to understand, in a simple way, what they can expect from the wine, all based on the climate that has shaped it.

Aleksandra Kekic

Atfield technologies doo Bečej

Atfield Technologies Bečej

Vukašin Pejović

Winessense sensors

Winessense app

vineyard monitoring

vineyard management

climate change and viticulture