Vineyards & UK Viticulture
Viticulture: For Advisers & Agents
What Viticulture changes for agronomists, agents, vets and consultants.
Advisers need scoped access, defensible records and a way to work across a client base without re-keying. UK viticulture has grown into a serious sector with almost no UK-native vineyard software behind it. This module carries phenology, growing degree day accumulation, mildew and botrytis risk, canopy management, yield estimation from flowering counts, harvest logistics and the direct-to-consumer sales channel that most vineyards depend on for margin.
In their words
What the job actually looks like
These are not marketing personas. Each one is a distinct job with a distinct constraint, and the module is designed so that solving one does not create work for the others.
New entrant planter
Establishing 10 ha
Needs site suitability and establishment cost modelling before committing.
- Establish the block record and site assessment
- Track dormancy and prune
- Monitor budburst and frost risk
- Manage canopy through the growing season
Contract winemaker
Multi-grower intake
Needs block-level provenance carried into the winery record.
- Track dormancy and prune
- Monitor budburst and frost risk
- Manage canopy through the growing season
- Run the disease programme with interval control
Owner-operator, Kent
6 ha with cellar door
Needs vineyard records and the wine shop to be the same system.
- Monitor budburst and frost risk
- Manage canopy through the growing season
- Run the disease programme with interval control
- Estimate yield at flowering and again at veraison
End to end
How Viticulture runs, start to finish
The module is modelled as a state machine, so at any point the business knows exactly which stage every record is at and what has to happen next.
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1
Establish the block record and site assessment
This is where the record starts, and getting it right here removes work at every later stage.
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2
Track dormancy and prune
The platform prompts only for what this stage genuinely needs, and carries everything forward.
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3
Monitor budburst and frost risk
Conflicts with scheme rules, regulatory windows and existing commitments are flagged here rather than discovered later.
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4
Manage canopy through the growing season
Capture works offline, so this stage is completed in the field rather than remembered afterwards.
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5
Run the disease programme with interval control
Everything recorded at this point becomes evidence automatically, in every format that will later ask for it.
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6
Estimate yield at flowering and again at veraison
This is the stage most businesses currently do twice, once for the operation and once for the paperwork.
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7
Sample, harvest and deliver to winery
Results feed the whole-farm view, so the effect of this stage is visible against the rest of the business.
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8
Sell through cellar door and direct channels
The cycle closes here, and what is learned is carried into next season's plan rather than lost.
Capabilities
What Viticulture does
Every capability below is built on the same underlying record, so entering something once is enough for it to appear wherever it is needed.
Record and plan
- Block and row level vineyard record with variety, rootstock, clone and planting year
- Growing degree day accumulation from local weather with variety-specific thresholds
- Phenology tracking through budburst, flowering, veraison and harvest
Operate and monitor
- Downy and powdery mildew risk modelling with spray interval management
- Botrytis risk assessment through the ripening period
- Canopy management record — shoot thinning, leaf removal, trimming and tucking
Comply and evidence
- Yield estimation from bunch counts, bunch weight and historic conversion factors
- Harvest logistics with picking sequence, sugar, acid and pH sampling
- Winery intake reconciliation from vineyard block to tank
Analyse and improve
- Frost risk alerting with site-specific cold air drainage considerations
- Direct-to-consumer wine shop with age verification and duty handling
- Cellar door, tasting and tour booking linked to the agritourism module
Benchmarking
How this compares with businesses like yours
A cohort is only useful if it is genuinely comparable, so it is built from farm type, soil grade, region and scale rather than from whoever happens to have signed up. Your own figure is never shown to anyone else.
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Tonnes per hectare
Your figure appears hereLower quartile 29 Median 50 Upper quartile 82
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Bottles produced per hectare
Your figure appears hereLower quartile 23 Median 54 Upper quartile 78
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Disease incidence at harvest
Your figure appears hereLower quartile 20 Median 53 Upper quartile 85
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Yield estimate accuracy
Your figure appears hereLower quartile 33 Median 54 Upper quartile 71
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Direct-to-consumer margin per bottle
Your figure appears hereLower quartile 36 Median 49 Upper quartile 82
How the cohort is built
- Farm type
- Matched
- Soil grade
- Matched
- Region
- Matched
- Scale band
- Matched
- Cohort size
- Minimum 12 businesses, or no comparison is shown
Worked example
How a business like yours would use Viticulture
The problem: Needs disease pressure and spray intervals defensible under assurance.
What they do
- Establish the block record and site assessment
- Track dormancy and prune
- Monitor budburst and frost risk
- Manage canopy through the growing season
What changes
- Tonnes per hectare
- Bottles produced per hectare
- Disease incidence at harvest
This is an illustrative worked example built from the module design, not a customer reference. Named case studies are published only with the business's written consent.
What we are hearing
The problems people describe to us
These are composite statements drawn from user research conversations, not attributed customer quotes. We publish named references only with written consent.
I am not short of software. I am short of one place where the same field means the same thing in all of it.
The scheme closed on a Tuesday evening. I had the application half built. Nobody told me the budget was nearly gone.
We farm on both sides of the border. Everything takes twice as long and I still cannot see the whole position on one screen.
Audit week costs me three days. Every single record they ask for is already written down somewhere on this farm.
Measurement
How you will know it is working
The module reports against these measures from the day it is switched on, so the value is demonstrable rather than assumed.
- 01Tonnes per hectare
- 02Bottles produced per hectare
- 03Disease incidence at harvest
- 04Yield estimate accuracy
- 05Direct-to-consumer margin per bottle
Free tool
Run the numbers for your own holding
Enter your figures and get an answer you can act on, with the method shown so you can check it. Save the result to your account or take it away as a PDF.