GRÉGOIRE AND SAME AWARDED FOUR MEDALS AT THE SITEVI EXHIBITION

The SDF group received four medals for innovation at the latest Sitevi exhibition, one of the most important trade shows in the world dedicated to vine-wine,olive and fruit & vegetable production, which took place in Montpellier from 28th to 30th November 2017.

A gold medal was awarded to Grégoire for AutopincH, an automatic and continuous system that controls the opening of the shaker rod arms and the degree of force applied to the vines during grape harvester machine shaker rod operations, by constantly maintaining the operator's preset values, even for vegetation of different ages, that of different vegetative vigour and when in close proximity to support poles. AutopincH guarantees better crop protection during harvesting, allowing the operator to work more easily; and thanks to the continuous opening of the shaker rod arms, it also provides optimal protection to vine plants and the machine's working parts, thereby further extending their service life.

The second medal, silver, was also awarded to Grégoire for the new NEOmap system that maps and georeferences the different productivity levels that are inevitably found in vineyards, in order to study agronomic strategies to allow for more uniform management. This new function is made possible thanks to a special stainless steel plate fitted with sensors, located at the heart of the transport chain, which weighs the product in transit and performs satellite georeferencing using devices that simultaneously connect GPS, Glonass and Galileo signals. The presence of load cells between the machine chassis and the crop storage hoppers mean that the system is also capable of performing more precise mapping operations.

The third medal, bronze, was awarded to SAME, who showcased Connected Vineyard, a precision farming system that connects and integrates different precision viticulture technologies, drawing from collective experience and that of the three partners involved in the development of the project (SDF, Pessl Instrument and Topcon). Connected Vineyard collects data from a wide range of sources that are able to provide useful agronomic information. This system detects climate trends (via automatic meteorological stations), and the vegetative vigour of fields and/or vines (using drones with multispectral and/or hyperspectral cameras). All of this combined brings to the industry a single device that manages the entire vineyard process, from generating vigour maps to reporting on final operations, and constantly supporting the decision-making process. Furthermore, Connected Vineyard uses precision maps – automatically transferred in the ISOBUS terminal – to control ISOBUS-compatible equipment that can then operate at variable rates when working in the field, for example, atomisers and/or Grégoire grape harvester machines.

The fourth medal, also bronze, was again awarded to Grégoire for the innovative EASYpilot, a non-GPS automatic row guidance system. The Grégoire EASYpilot automatically aligns the machine with the rows, meaning the driver is free to concentrate on other tasks at hand. Optoelectronic technology enables precise and reliable automatic steering without the use of satellite technology such as RTK GPS. The spatial orientation of the rows is detected using a 3D infrared telemetric sensor coupled with an infrared wave emitter to allow the device to work efficiently, even at night.

Whilst attending the fortieth edition of the SITEVI exhibition in Montpellier, SDF, with its Grégoire and SAME brands, presented a series of innovation theses to further improve the quality and productivity of mechanised operations in the vineyard. The development of new digital technologies dedicated to agriculture symbolises a new frontier in the agronomic approach to production. This allows for agronomic choices to be made that take into account extensive data and are not exclusively based on just a few guidelines . The analysis of such data allows for operations that are even more focused and precise, with the aim of improving the quality of agricultural production.