Barossa Valley, SA · February 2026

Vineyard vigour zoning

Five-band multispectral flights across 240 ha of vines, used to split blocks into harvest zones by vigour.

Vines mapped: 240 ha
Vigour zones per block: 3
Flights per season: 6

The challenge

Blocks were being picked as single units, which mixed high- and low-vigour fruit and flattened wine quality.

What we did

We flew multispectral missions at key phenological stages and computed NDVI and NDRE. Then we clustered each block into vigour zones, validated by petiole sampling in the field.

Outcome

Zones were picked separately at harvest. The winemaker now makes single-zone parcels from what used to be blended fruit.