How can precision agriculture prescription maps contribute to the 50% pesticide reduction goal of the farm-to-fork strategy in viticulture

Abstract

The Farm-to-Fork (F2F) strategy of the European Green Deal demands a 50 % reduction in the use of pesticides by 2030. In this work, several Precision Agriculture solutions were used in a vineyard spray application and the results were compared to a conventional treatment. Three different treatments were applied with the farm air-blast sprayer in a commercial 2.5 ha vineyard. Treatment 1 was the conventional farm application of a uniform 450 L ha-1 volume rate. In Treatment 2, the decision support system (DSS) DOSA3D was used to decide an adjusted uniform volume rate of 430 L ha-1. Treatment 3 took advantage of several PA techniques: a) electronic canopy characterization using a mobile terrestrial laser scanner to map canopy geometric parameters; b) management zones delineation; c) DSS to decide two different dose rates to create a prescription map (low vigour: 340 L ha-1 and high vigour: 430 L ha-1); d) variable-rate technology to execute the prescription map implemented in the farm sprayer. The spray deposit on leaves was the parameter used to assess differences between treatments. The statistical analysis did not show significant differences between treatments in high vigour vines. However, in low vigour vines, the mean deposits of both uniform treatments increased and showed significant differences with the variable-rate treatment.