Digital pest and disease, pesticide and irrigation management by 13. Jul - Plantaže vineyards

The Montenegrin grape, wine and brandy wine producer 13. Jul - Plantaže joined the DEMETER project in 2020 with a view to establishing a digitalized farm management system on its 2310 ha vineyard producing 10.5 million grapes. The company installed various sensors and other IoT technologies that support the application of evidence-based pest and disease control, optimise pesticide usage and irrigation, increase crop quality, and support the transparency of products in the supply chain.

• Desktop/web-based application
• Remote sensing
• Sensor
• Internet of things (IoT)
• Cloud
• Blockchain

The company installed a weather station (with sensors for the measurement of temperature, air humidity, precipitation, leaf moisture, solar radiation, wind speed, photosynthetic activity, daily evapotranspiration and steam voltage), devices containing three different types of sensors for monitoring soil moisture, digital traps to monitor pests, and a gateway router to receive and send data to the Cloud. The DNET agroNET app was used to provide decision support, allowing access to the collected data and installed with the necessary tools for decision-making, such as for pest and disease management, and for the configuration of data for the creation of product passports. In the pilot phase of the project, data were collected and processed in the Cloud, and farmers were provided with insights and instructions in real time. A blockchain-based data exchange protocol (OriginTrail) was used to ensure supply chain transparency between stakeholders and to ensure the integrity of the data exchanged through the value chain.

• Medium size farms
• Large size farms
• Private sector

The Montenegrin company 13. Jul - Plantaže is one of the largest producers of grapes, wine and brandy vines in Southeast Europe, operating with 2300 ha of vineyards. As of December 2022, Plantaže produces some 22 million kg of grapes each year, and markets more than 16 million bottled products in over 40 countries around the world. The good practice could be easier to replicate on medium- and large-sized farms, orchards and vineyards with strong financial backing and good technological know-how.  

• Donor support

The pilot was funded by the H2020 DEMETER project.

According to the company, digital technologies helped manage the variability within the vineyard  and factors affecting quality and yield, while the pilot project helped in the optimization of pesticide use and irrigation, leading to decreases in production costs and increases in grape quality. Furthermore, the blockchain-based data exchange protocol contributed to trust and transparency between the producer and buyers.

Horizon 2020 DEMETER; DNETLabs; University of Donja Gorica; Trace Labs; Digital Innovation Hub Agrifood; Association of grape and wine producers "Srem - Fruška gora"