Second trend of the SITEVI Innovation Awards: reduction in the use of chemical products
In today’s climate, it is becoming difficult to use chemical products, whether in fields or in the cellar. The exhibitors of SITEVI have developed innovative solutions to improve existing techniques and/or put forward alternatives when possible.
At the intersection between this trend and the previous one, we find the expert DeciTrait® system by IFV (Bronze medal). DeciTrait® offers the wine grower a personalised crop protection strategy based on the available data and expert knowledge, enriched in real-time by weather sensor data. Thanks to its interoperability with external systems, this decision aid indicates the date of the next treatment with doses reduced by 30 to 50%, whilst guaranteeing the harvest. The history of treatments is memorised, which furthermore makes them more reliably traceable.
The success of crop treatment is highly reliant on the effectiveness and ability of the sprayer to apply the product on the target. The Bliss system developed by IRSTEA (Silver medal) is a precision spraying system guided by air blades for the application of liquid products leaf by leaf on carried sprayers. The containment is obtained thanks to a blower that leverages the Coanda effect to create a ring of air that guides the product to the target plant. Dispensing with the need for a recovery panel, this new system prevents virtually all loss of product on the ground or in the atmosphere and improves the plant coverage rate.
LabelPulvé (Silver medal) presented by IFV and with the support of a committee of public and professional stakeholders, is a tool to improve sprayer performance. It is an unprecedented voluntary process for the labelling of winegrowing sprayers according to the quality of spraying and the possibility of reducing the volumes sprayed at several growing stages. A normative sticker (grades A+, A, B or C) is delivered, together with a QR code pointing to details on how the labels are awarded.
The firm Michael Paetzold has built a unit for the controlled oxygenation of musts (Bronze medal) aimed at the treatment of musts in prefermentation stage. This function consists of combining a dose of oxygen with the must in order to eliminate the compounds that are harmful to the ageing of wine. This equipment can also be used for winery tasks all year (addition of products, standardisation, etc). With the system, the operator can also optimise the addition of inputs and notably reduce the use of SO2.
The smart press by Pera-Pellenc (Bronze medal) is a genuine oenological tool. The injection of winemaking inputs during pressing has been reviewed to inject solutions other than SO2, in particular plant protein. The objective is to process the juices as soon as they leave the grape cells, to prevent oxidation. The system can also inject an enzyme solution at the heart of the harvest, in particular during an enzyme maceration following Flash Détente for red wine.
There is also a trend in replacing chemicals by more neutral products which are less hazardous to health or the environment. Agrauxine presents Julietta® (Bronze medal), the first bio-fungicide made from live Saccharomyces Cerevisiae LAS02 yeasts to fight botrytis both on grapevines and on several types of fruit and vegetables. This biocontrol acts by competing for space and nutrients with the pest. It fulfils the need to reduce the use of artificial crop protection products.
More generally, we can see a trend emerging in the development of biocontrol products, such as Andermatt’s Vitisan and the development of alternative physical methods of fungus protection or disinfection, such as the use of UV rays (Hélios 2 DR by UV BOOSTING) and pulsed light (INSTAN LIGHT by SORMAF).
Third trend: commercial differentiation
This is a trend that has existed marginally for several years, but which remains valid, and has become more marked this year. This differentiation aims to achieve better positioning of products, their price and their image in relation to the competition, or to develop business new markets.
The company Gai France offers its MLE 4441 CAN machine (Bronze medal) which is a monobloc can filling machine fitted with electro pneumatic taps which works under gas pressure, designed for the filling of sparkling, rose and alcohol free wines. This “canning line”, offered at a highly attractive price, enable small producers to consider this new selling format for these products.
The company Inessens offers its Fresnel lens system (Silver medal) which gives a highly attractive edge to bottle labels, whilst also reinforcing the fight against counterfeit. The Fresnel Lens is a decoration in the form of a transparent dome that produces refractive, attractive and in-depth effects. The Fresnel lens is hot-stamped onto labels, giving them originality and sophistication at reduced cost and thus helping bottles to stand out from the crowd on shelves.
The CH201 C.O.V. pear marketed by Dalival (Bronze medal) is a new variety of two coloured pear, therefore easy to identify by the consumer, which is distributed selectively under the Fred® brand, in contrast to ordinary retailing methods. In view of a product offering that has been quite “static” in recent years, this two-tone, crunchy and juicy pear contributes fresh impetus to innovation in terms of variety and product range, featuring the combined assets of early and regular production, easy growing and good resistance to fire blight.
