VitiMeteo and Agrometeo: Two platforms for plant protection management based on an international collaboration

Abstract

The negative effects of plant protection products on the human health and the environment have become a major concern for consumers and politics in Europe. In the last years new policies for risk mitigation and reduction of use of synthetic pesticides has been enforce in Europe and Switzerland. A possible strategy to reduce the use of plant protection products is to spray according to the epidemic of diseases and pests by following decision support systems (DSS). The platform VitiMeteo offers a wide set of forecasting models for viticulture including downy and powdery mildew, black rot, grape berry moth and rust mite. Two research institutes the Staatliches Weinbauinstitut Freiburg (Germany) and Agroscope (Switzerland) developed VitiMeteo jointly. A consortium was built with the company Geosens (Germany) which is in charge of the programming of the different forecasting software. Each institute is running his own internet website with specific tools and feature for each country but the core of the system is the same. The combination of these different DSS allows a significant reduction of plant protection products used. All these forecasting systems and tools are freely available for the winegrowers on the platform www.vitimeteo.de and www.agrometeo.ch. The use of these platforms helps the winegrowers to meet current society's expectations.