Micro and Meso Weather Monitoring in Vineyards
On a bottle of wine, you normally see a year imprinted on its label. That represents the ‘vintage’, the year that its grapes were picked. But how is this information important? And what makes one vintage better than another? Answer - the weather. It is one of, if not the most important external factor for the calibre of wine produced. The weather in the vineyard during a given year impacts the health and quality of the fruit produced. In viticulture practices, winegrowers need to precisely focus on weather conditions surrounding their vineyard , technically termed ‘meso-weather’, and more precisely the environment within the vineyard canopy (such as rows of vines), called the ‘micro-weather’, as opposed to the weather details of a larger area as determined by any local weather station ‘macro-weather’. Micro-level variables can be considerably different ( up to 37% ) from that of the macro-level region. One of them is the Soil moisture Content which is specific to the plots. Water stre