Project
The correct and timely execution of phytosanitary treatments is essential to ensure the achievement of a satisfactory production both in terms of quantity and quality. This activity represents an important item in vineyard management costs and can have important impacts on the environment and the consumer; therefore it must be sought a technical solution which, by safeguarding the health of the grapes, also pays attention to human health and resources waste limitation (pesticides, fuels, water).
Today this problem is faced through the use of the so-called recovery machines, which however have considerable limitations (due to weight and maneuverability) if used in hilly environments, typical of Tuscan vineyards and of many other Italian winegrowing areas.
Solution
The KATTIVO project consists in the development of a technological kit, easy to apply and economically sustainable, which, applied to traditional atomizers, allows the distribution of plant protection products at variable doseaccording to the volume of the canopy to be treated, allowing to reduce the water wastage and the use of pesticides, in particular for vineyards located in hilly areas (like in Tuscany) where the product recovery machines have difficulty to transit due to excessive slopes.
The kit will be tested in two different Tuscan model farms (located in hilly environments with different incline orographic conditions) on two different types of atomizers.
Goals
The aim of the KATTIVO project is the promotion of phytosanitary treatments with variable mix volume, identifying “flexible” and low cost systems to be applied to already existing atomizers that allow the real time detection of the variation of the crown of the crop to be treated, thanks to sensors that collect the volumetric data and, through the processing of the same through an algorithm, translate it into a modulation of applied mixture volume.
Expected results
- Reduction in the use of plant protection products in the order of 30%, with consequent positive implications both from an economic and environmental point of view
- Savings in terms of water resource usage
- Increase in soil fertility. A site-specific management allows, in fact, a reduction of the passages for the machines with a positive influence on the level of fertility of the soil due to a lower compaction
- New job opportunities in the field of precision farming (e.g. “agrotronic” skills), since for an increasingly integral and integrated application of precision viticulture, new competences need to be formed on the territory
Activities
WORK PACKAGES
RESPONSIBLE/S
1. Coordination and animation of the Operational Group
2. Development and testing of a kit in the pilot area 1
TENUTE RUFFINO company (farm holder)
3. Development and testing of a kit in the pilot area 2
AGRICOLA SAN FELICE company (farm holder)
4. Evaluation of the effectiveness of treatments
Council for research in agriculture and analysis of the agrarian economy – Research center for viticulture and oenology
5. Analysis of the problems of application of sprayed products on the vegetation of the vineyard and verification of the quality of spraying
6. Evaluation of the impact and economic sustainability of innovation and transferability scenarios
7. Divulgation through the Nation Rural Network and EIP Agri and networking with other community networks and projects as well as Operational Groups of other Italian and / or European Regions
Department of Agricultural, Food, Environmental and Forestry Sciences and Technologies (DAGRI) of the University of Florence
8. Dissemination of project results
ERATA (Regional Agency for Technical Assistance in Agriculture of Confagricoltura Toscana)
PARTNERS
