Page 28 - Grapevine July-August 2015

In The Winery
another four million ton harvest.” Ron told The
Grapevine Magazine. This is great news, for now.
They face many obstacles in the future and will
need to find alternative water sources if they want
to continue to see a normal harvest in the years to
come.
With the population ever growing, state govern-
ment officials have mandated that cities and towns
must use less water. It is now a law in California
that everyone must use 25% less water. This was
definitely a step in the right direction, but did the
mandate go far enough? One key point that many
soon realized was that the mandate doesn’t apply to
agriculture. This industry is reportedly responsible
for approximately 80% of water usage. This is a
very large exception to the rule. It wasn’t too long
before the public made their argument clear. Why
should residents and businesses have to comply with
the 25% decrease if some of the largest water-users
around are exempt from the rule? If anything, grow-
ers would arguably make the most noticeable dif-
ference out of anyone if they were to decrease their
water use, even by a small amount.
The Central Valley has arguably been hit the hard-
est. Growers here rely heavily on reservoirs, wells,
and groundwater. “I think everyone in California
is hoping that the recent forecasts of a strong El
Nino, arriving later this year, will be accurate.
However, the state needs more than precipitation
in the form of rain. It needs a good winter snow-
pack to fill California’s depleted reservoirs,” Ron
said. However, with the drought still in full force,
so many are pulling from these resources that the
wells are running dry. New wells are being dug, but
Page 26 The Grapevine • July - August 2015
this is only a temporary solution to a much larger
problem. “For the second year in a row, growers
with contracts from the Central Valley Project, a
large federal irrigation system, will receive no water
for irrigation. The State Water Project allocations
hover around 20 percent of normal, while the San
Joaquin Valley irrigation districts are delivering no
more than 30-35 percent of normal supplies. So,
you can see, there is not a ‘one size fits all’ situation
with this drought and availability of water.” Ron
explained.
This isn’t to say that growers are making no
attempt to conserve water, but there’s still a lot of
room for improvement. There are several options
that are worth taking a closer look at. Let’s start
with dry farming. This was the primary method
used to grow grapes for a long time, but the major-
ity of vineyards now water their crops. This makes
sense, to a certain degree, particularly for vine-
yards who supply grapes to the wineries that make
less expensive wines. The key here is quantity, not
quality. However, dry farming is a great option for
all vineyards to consider. Less water results in a
lower yield, but the grapes produced are much more
flavorful. This is a great option for vineyards who
supply to high end wineries where flavor is key.
Perhaps it’s time we revert back to an option that
some would argue we never should have strayed
from to begin with.
Another innovative option for vineyards to con-
sider is the use of a water monitoring system. This
option allows growers to closely watch their water
usage. By tracking this data, growers can improve
upon their water use by using the least amount of
water possible that will still give them their desired
crop yield. Tule Technologies, founded in early
2014, provides sensors that monitor evapotranspi-
ration (ET). The actual ET refers to the amount of
water that is vaporized and transpired from the field
to the atmosphere. “We help growers carry out their
irrigation strategies for meeting the yield and quality
goals of each vineyard block,” Tom Shapland with
Tule Technologies told The Grapevine Magazine.
Currently, this is the only technology available of its
kind commercially. “From 2014 to 2015, we have
tripled the number of sensors installed in fields,”
Tom said of their growing business. Tule also pro-
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