"The first year with Phytech was eye-opening", Chris Dent / Gorton Drive

We’re proud to highlight growers who are helping shape the future of agriculture. As we continue growing better together, our latest story comes from Australia’s vineyards.

Gorton Drive Estates is a family-owned vineyard situated on the banks of Kangaroo Lake in Victoria’s Swan Hill region. The estate is managed by second-generation viticulturist Chris Dent. They have been cultivating high-quality wine grapes on the property since 1969.

Chris, who oversees all aspects of the operation to supply high-quality wine grapes commercially, shared his experience with Heino Malan, our Riverina & Mallee Territory Manager.

Read the full testimonial below.

1. What challenges were you facing in your irrigation or crop management before using Phytech?

You don't know what you don't know! We had a number of capacitance probes located throughout the vineyard and used them in conjunction with other irrigation decision tools including weather forecasts, vine growth stage, physical appearance, dig stick, etc to determine irrigation requirements and evaluating irrigation effectiveness.

All of these tools required interpretation to determine what the vine required. I love data and believe that the more valuable data points you can have, the better understanding you have to make better decisions!

2. How has Phytech changed the way you make decisions on the farm?

Phytech was the first solution we introduced that actually measured the vine's response to weather and irrigation. The first year of having Phytech was eye-opening to understand the vine's response to different weather events, irrigation events and vine growth stages.

We effectively continued to irrigate the vineyard exactly the way we always did and we made some profound discoveries that have changed the way we irrigate moving forward.

We found that we were OVER-irrigating early in the season (budburst to flowering), UNDER-irrigating through Veraison (a maturation stage of a grapevine when berry sugars start accumulating, skins begin softening and berries change their colour in red varieties), and OVER-irrigating late in the season (berries ripening).

The first change we made in the second year of having Phytech was changing how much we irrigate at critical times throughout the growing season. While we saw some improvements in water use efficiency, we witnessed improved and more even vine growth and less stress symptoms with this small change to irrigation management.

3. Can you share a specific example where Phytech helped you achieve better outcomes - such as yield, water savings, or labour efficiency? If applicable, please demonstrate ROI.

The biggest water saving we discovered was when we focussed on the vines response to the timing of irrigation throughout each day. As we are a private diverter, we generally irrigated at night due to the lower pumping (power) rates.

However, when we started experimenting with some daytime irrigations, we found that we could get the same response from the vine with less hours of irrigation. Anecdotally we were seeing the same response from 4 hours of irrigation (from a mix of night and daytime irrigation) as 5 hours of total night irrigation. This change meant our power bills were slightly higher, but our water use was much lower.

4. What features or aspects of the system do you find most valuable?

The visuals and ease of use in the phone app and the desktop site is fantastic. We also value the service from Phytech who ensure the system is always running optimally.

5. In what ways has Phytech influenced how you and your team collaborate or communicate about irrigation or crop management?

We now talk about our MDS (Maximum Daily Shrinkage) and when we are green, orange or red. We have also changed our timing of fertigation to maximise uptake and growth response.