Vineyard Water Conservation
This page provides links to the Sonoma County Vineyard Water Conservation Demonstration Project. The project is being sponsored by the Sonoma County Water Agency. Mark Greenspan is coordinating the project for the agency. The demonstration site is at Hoot Owl Creek Vineyards / Alexander Valley Vineyards and will be showcasing various irrigation strategies side-by-side, as well as different approaches to vineyard canopy cooling during extreme heat events. All data collected in this project will be made available, including vineyard plant moisture status, soil moisture of 6 irrigation practices, a soil moisture wetting profile, measured by soil moisture devices, and weather data. The irrigation and cooling systems will be automated and irrigation and cooling events will be visible.
Be sure to check out our sponsors/contributors page!
Look here for links to real-time online data!:
We've added Kunde's Wildwood Vineyards as a second demonstration site. We will be monitoring soil moisture and plant water status in contrasting soils and varieties.
Please make plans to attend the 2010 vineyard water conservation demonstration field days! One field day at each of the demonstration sites. Demos will feature show and tell of the vineyard water status instrumentation, current and past results, and speakers from the local RCDs, NRCS, frost protection task force and SCWA talking about current water issues and support mechanisms for implementing water conservation measures. Field days will include a hosted BBQ lunch!
August 18th: Kunde Wildwood Vineyards, 9:30 to 1:30
August 20th: Hoot Owl Creek / Alexander Valley Vineyards, 9:30 to 1:30
The Final Report for the 2009 demonstratino project is available, demonstrating quite substantial water savings in irrigation and cooling! Please note that the results of this demonstration project represent one season's practice at one particular site. Nevertheless, the concepts discussed may be applied to any vineyard in this region and to many other regions as well.
The 2009 demonstratioin project report may be obtained by clicking here.
