Supporting the growing UK vineyard sector – Vineyard

The trend looks likely to continue, given the country’s changing climate, although after the relatively kind 2022 growing season it can be easy to forget the UK remains on the margin of major grape producing regions. With weather events becoming more extreme, growers still face plenty of challenges, as shown by the late frosts in 2020, so we must ensure all production systems – large and small – are as resilient as possible.

This can be challenging, given the limited armoury of crop protection products available, tighter regulations, labour shortages and financial pressures created by rising costs, but Hutchinsons’ agronomists are here to help, offering a wealth of knowledge, experience and technical support to help manage the challenges and drive productivity and quality.

Hutchinsons offers bespoke agronomy advice, crop protection products and vineyard sundry items and equipment, plus novel solutions such as plant defence elicitors, bio-control products and cutting-edge digital services such as Omnia and TerraMap.

Indeed, as sustainability, carbon footprinting and soil health become increasingly important, so systems like TerraMap and Omnia come into their own. Omnia offers a range of disease forecasting models, while TerraMap allows growers to accurately highlight and manage the inherent variability across many soil parameters, allowing problem areas to be managed and inputs to be used more efficiently, benefitting productivity and the environment. Its carbon mapping functionality is another area that will gain importance as the political drive towards “net zero” filters down to individual growers.

Whether you’re new to the vineyard sector or an experienced grower, visit stand K47 at the Vineyard Show to discover how Hutchinsons can help your business.