H2020 VISCA Project: Integrated Climate-Smart Vineyard Application

Spain, France, and Italy alone, the leading wine-producing Member States, accounted for one-third of the world's vineyards in 2019 (Opens in new window). Predicting local climate variations, critical for quality and quantity, has always been fraught with uncertainty; climate change and severe weather events have significantly amplified this and its subsequent effects. The EU-funded VISCA project (Opens in new window)

The project has developed and demonstrated (opens in a new window) the potential of a decision support system (DSS) to improve the resilience of wine grape farms facing increasing climate-related challenges. Science is helping farmers. Farmers continuously assess potential adverse conditions at all timescales. Typically, short-term decisions (a few days in advance) are based on weather data using global or regional models, which reduces the accuracy of local predictions. For decisions made weeks (medium-term) or months (seasonal or long-term) in advance, experience has been the guide, but it is no longer as reliable given climate change and sudden extreme weather events.

Project coordinator Josep Maria Solé Tasias of METEOSIM SL (Opens in new window) explains: "VISCA DSS (Opens in new window) integrates climate and agricultural models with real vineyard data to identify effective adaptation strategies. It includes short-, medium-term, and seasonal weather forecasts, as well as climate projections linked to agricultural models to enable forecasts of phenology (the seasonal growth cycle of vines), irrigation requirements (Opens in new window), and sugar accumulation." The forecasts can identify the likelihood of extreme events such as heat waves, heavy precipitation, or spring frosts several days or months in advance. The intuitive user interface also simplifies the interpretation of novel and complex analyses, and the platform is easily accessible on smartphones, tablets, and computers. Customized planning: VISCA DSS data, charts, and services are flexible and modular, and can be operated separately.

Users provide initial information about the vineyard, including plot definition, irrigation regime, and essential characteristics such as soil type and grape varieties. They can then upload actual data, such as actual irrigation, either manually or automatically; updates are used to improve future forecasts. The services are interconnected, and data is updated daily, weekly, or monthly, depending on the service. Solé Tasias explains: "The most important benefit of VISCA DSS is that, unlike most existing solutions, it integrates and couples meteorological and agronomic services into a single, easy-to-use platform. It also incorporates the latest techniques to improve climate change adaptation in vineyards." Crop forcing (opens in a new window) shifts the grape ripening period from the hot summer months to a cooler month later in the growing season, and shoot trimming (opens in a new window) slows sugar accumulation. Xavier Bordes of Codorníu (Opens in new window), where the crop forcing technique was applied to a plot to achieve grape ripening in October instead of July, says: "VISCA DSS helps us make better decisions about vineyard management. Without it, we wouldn't be able to explore the optimal pruning date to implement the crop forcing technique in time."

It also helped minimize the spread of mildew (fungus) during a wetter than normal spring and hotter than normal summer in Spanish vineyards. Here's to greater resilience, more secure livelihoods, and a bountiful table. Field trials in Spain(Opens in new window), Italy(Opens in new window), and Portugal(Opens in new window) have demonstrated the usefulness of the models' predictions, and this should improve with increasing user input. The VISCA DSS should be similarly useful in other countries and for other crops, including olives, cereals, and rice. In short, VISCA has given us all a reason to raise our glasses and cheer.