In 2017 alone, Austrian fruit and winegrowing suffered late frost damage totalling 70 million euros. Late frosts will increase with the effects of climate change due to extreme weather events and pose a threat to domestic viticulture and fruit growing due to the increasingly early budding of plants.
In the innovation project, new methods of frost control are being developed and existing methods are being evaluated and improved where necessary. Examples of methods used include delaying budding, pruning, heating, irrigation and air circulation. The overall aim of the project is to minimise yield losses in vineyards and orchards in the event of frost.
The late frost risk is to be estimated on the basis of large-scale weather data in combination with small-scale weather data from additional digital weather stations in frosty locations. The most accurate determination of humidity, temperature, wind etc. is carried out using digital sensors directly in the vineyards and orchards, with data transmission via the LoRaWAN and IOT radio protocol. LoRaWAN and IOT enables the energy-efficient transmission of data over a long range of more than ten kilometres.
Project management at the W&O RTD: Franz G. Rosner, Lothar Wurm and Ferdinand Regner
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