Hungarian farm monitoring technology company SmartVineyard continues to expand its scope outside Europe, with representatives and partners aiming to score deals in the Chilean and Californian wine industries.

The business has recently received financial support from government-backed entrepreneurship program Start-Up Chile, with its patented radar sensor network technology that can help farmers predict diseases and act accordingly.

SmartVineyard chief sales officer Dávid Salamon told www.freshfruitportal.com the technology, currently in use throughout Hungary and in southern Slovakia, helped growers avoid disease and get better results.

"There are grapevine diseases that are hard to predict like powdery mildews, downy mildews, botrytis, black rot, and there are between environmental factors and the spreading of these diseases," he said.

"That's where we come into the picture to help the winemaker reduce their production cost by optimizing their schedule and irrigation management.

"It involves network of sensor stations that we deploy in the vineyard that are interconnected with our patented radar sensor network technology, and we send that over the cloud to your home basically."

The technology took three years to develop and has been in use for 1.5 years, testing the waters close to home first.

"We have been dreaming about Californian and Chilean markets as some of our key markets to introduce the technology, but we first wanted a base which is Hungary.

"We wanted a place with large scale production and where technology would be more mature - from 4ha up the technology pays for itself in three years time, but it’s the bigger wine producers that can benefit the most out of it, because that’s where the most cost-saving and effect comes in."

He said the technology takes several factors into account, including rain, leaf wetness, temperature, humidity and soil moisture, which are linked to mathematical models that predict disease. These models have been created in conjunction with partner growers, which means other diseases, crops and functions could be incorporated in the future.

"Since we are developing hardware and software, we are looking for other sensors to be attached to the system, but believe that we don’t want to give additional burden on the customer; just the necessities and then if there’s a special need we’re open to it.

"For example, in parts of Europe theft is a problem so people don’t like to put expensive equipment unattended in the vineyards or horticulture, and we developed for instance a GPS tracking system for the customer for theft-protection."

The company currently has 12 staff, plus four people starting a company in California and a partner in Chile.

He said the radar sensor network was also more practical for winemakers and horticulturalists than installing a meteorological station.

"There are general purpose agri-meterological stations that exist, but our solution is unique by the way the user interacts with the system because it’s very intuitive; it’s enough to learn in five minutes how the system works, and it’s on a touch screen device, and even computer illiterate people can use it.

"You don’t need to sit in front of the computer with an internet connection; it’s right in your hand, and also the precision is very high. We measure every minute, and up to one hundredth of a centigrade for temperature.

"The user doesn’t want a meteorological station. It's very rare that someone who owns 700 hectares of blueberries wakes up in the morning and thinks, 'I am in such need of a meteorological station."

He adds traceability as another benefit of the product.

"Every bottle of wine being produced with the technology will be able to be traced back to the vineyard where it was produced, and the protection methods applied traced back, whether it’s in the barrel or in the shop shelf, so customers will be able to get additional information from their smartphones by checking the QR code on the label of the wine.

"We’ve also trademarked the SmartVineyard label so that this could be associated with less chemical consumption in viticulture, so that it gives an edge for our customers up on the shop shelves as well."

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