Intergenerational innovation at Integrape
In an industry where succession stories are an enduring tradition, the Besamusca family has tapped into intergenerational talent to offer layered and accessible data to vineyard operations.
Integrape’s digital tools are widely used in New Zealand vineyards, with data aggregated from myriad sources – including lab results, winery data and vineyard records – and presented via a geographical information system (GIS), so that the likes of nutrition and variability on vineyards are seen block by block, in a historical context.
Managing Director Joris Besamusca says the “next evolution” of the platform, Integrape Pro, offers more vineyard detail, at a 10x10 metre scale. It has been designed, in coordination with key clients, for a “new generation of data-engaged-users”, he says. “People passionate about using all the data available to them work as efficiently as possible.”
The granularity offered by the new iteration offers “deeper insights into each vine’s health and production, connecting data points from the soil right through to the resulting yield”, Joris says. “You can easily detect high or low spots in your vineyard and understand the overall variability.”
The family-owned company began in 2002, when Joris’s father, vineyard consultant Gerard Besamusca, decided he needed an improved system for managing the data from his clients, yielded from an array of sources. The platform was initially developed as a tool for his own clients, to store and use their own data. Since then, the technology has been in a constant state of evolution, including a major GIS overhaul in 2016, when Joris took over the reins and set up a separate entity, Intecrop. In 2020 they purchased the Vure App, developed by Spore Lab, which is used for data collection for the likes of yield estimation, and pest and disease monitoring, with GPS reference points, time stamps and optional image collection. “It helps viticulturists log problems and observations, immediately and accurately, from one end of the vineyard to the other”, Joris says.
As well as launching Integrape Pro in August, a new Vine Audit service is now being offered to count individual vines and log individual vine health, as a one-off snapshot or annual record. The audit could be used as a third-party assessment of a lease or sale block, or by companies to monitor and plan for change, Joris says. “With the results of an Integrape Vine Audit, vineyards have a base layer of data to monitor pest or disease development, or plot the results of their harvest.”
Whitehaven Viticulturist Jess Wilson has been using Integrape for four years – with the likes of soil tests in the vineyard and yeast assimilable nitrogen in the winery all easily accessible on the platform. Whitehaven started using Vure three years ago, meaning Jess can see live results of inflorescence counts, for example, and is able to query results, or request additional counts, then download the data from the app. “It has saved me so much time.” It’s a far cry from the paper system being used when she joined Whitehaven in 2018. “I had to wait all day for the team to get results and hand me their bits of paper. Then I would sit there and enter everything in.”
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Jess has her eye on an array of new technologies. “We won’t necessarily action everything, but there’s some very cool tech in the wings and it’s going to make our lives so much easier.”
