INDUSTRY

A combination of clever software and world best-practice vineyard know-how are giving Australia's $3 billion wine industry a fresh global edge. PAM AusVit is a software package that has been adopted by some of Australia and New Zealand's largest winemaking businesses, as well as attracting considerable interest in major wine producing countries such as California, Chile and South Africa. PAM AusVit contains tools for improving grape quality, reducing crop losses, predicting disease outbreaks and minimising chemical use in the vineyard. According to Roger Wiese of the West Australian software development company Fairport Technologies, it was a marriage made in heaven, when the Cooperative Research Centre for Viticulture (CRCV) formed a joint venture with Fairport to get the AusVit package into the hands of Australian grape growers and wine makers. "CRCV was doing world-leading work on their AusVit software program," says Roger. "This was particularly concerned with water use efficiency, pests and diseases, grape quality, spray application, wine quality and soil and canopy management, and incorporated very sophisticated modelling and prediction programs." Among its newest features is a database of nearly four hundred chemicals used in grape growing, plus the rules for their use in all the main customer markets. The AusVit Chemical Database was completely updated by the Cooperative Research Centre for Viticulture (CRCV) in February 2005. "Every winery has different chemical-use requirements, as their various products go to different export and domestic markets," says Bridget Ransome of the CRCV. "Australian grape growers have to keep track of herbicides, fungicides, pesticides, and fertilisers. "Growers not only have to know their chemicals, they also have to have a good knowledge of the rules and regulations which govern the use of each chemical, in Australia and in overseas markets," she says. "Each grower is required to keep a detailed 'spray diary' which is handed to the winery with every consignment of grapes. "PAM AusVit brings all of this together in one streamlined package, common to the grower, the wineries, and the researchers," says Bridget. "The database contains safety schedules for products, application information, permit use details, and guides the user in selecting the correct chemical for pest targets. "Other elements of the PAM AusVit package are essential tools for improving grape quality, reducing crop losses, predicting potential disease outbreaks, and minimising chemical use," she says. Bridget says that the AusVit Chemical Database can be used in conjunction with the Agrochemicals list published by the Australian Wine Research Institute, but contains more detail and more extensive listings. "Fairport's PAM Ultracrop program is really a very smart computerised diary, which any farmer with a computer and working in horticulture can use," he says. "We'd tried to incorporate every slightest piece of data which might advantage the farmer. "The CRCV research brought modelling to the mix," he says. "When PAM Ultracrop and the AusVit programs were melded to produce PAM AusVit, we felt we could offer a practical tool to the Australian wine industry which would put us well into the lead in the field of global innovation and 'best practice'". According to Roger, PAM AusVit has applications which cover the whole of the winemaking industry including prediction of yield, cost per vine, staffing requirements, water and fertiliser costs and needs, precision farming and mapping. "What the CRCV added to the product was the modelling and prediction capability which they had developed," he says. "This includes the vitally important areas of disease, and water usage and water stress. The CRCV modelling programs include very strong predictive capabilities that are vitally important to the industry. "As well as this we now have access to CRCV's AusVit Chemical Database, uniquely important to an industry which depends heavily on a pest free environment, but which cannot afford the least trace of chemical residues in its product," he says. Roger, a farmer himself for more than a decade, says that the needs of the ordinary grape grower was at all times foremost in the minds of the developers of PAM AusVit. "It has to be user-friendly," he says. "Any average grape grower with an entry-level computer has to be able to get into the program and understand what it's all about. And with a hand-held computer, the farmer can actually key into the program from the vineyard or while he is on his tractor. "To get the best advantage of the program we recommend a training course, as with any serious computer program, and with the CRCV we have set up a program of short courses aimed directly at grape growers and vineyard managers. "It's our aim to keep Australian wines up there with the best in the world," he says. Roger says that there is an export market for the computer software as well, though he stresses that modelling based on Australian conditions cannot be considered reliable in California, Chile or South Africa. However all the other aspects of the program are just as useful overseas as in Australia. "Australia produces about four per cent of the world's wine," he says, "and our winemaking know-how is as exportable as our top wines." The CRCV AusVit project supports Australia's National Research Priority No.3 - frontier technologies for transforming industry.