To protect against hail, frost and mildew

Hailstorms have pummelled many major winegrowing regions this season: Chablis in northern Burgundy, Penedès in Spain, Burgenland in Austria… Burgenland has also been hit by spring frost. So has Germany and French regions such as Cahors, the Jura, and Bergerac.
That’s why this product has caught my eye. Especially as the Viti-Tunnel from French company MO.DEL also protects grapes from rain and, therefore, mildew.
Demeter, the body that promotes biodynamic farming, is so impressed with its potential for grapegrowing without pesticides that it is investing €2m to help put the retractable tunnel into large-scale production. It hopes it will lead to a 90% reduction in the use of pesticides in vineyards that install the system.




The Viti-Tunnel can automatically shelter rows of vines during downpours and extreme weather events, such as spring frosts and hailstorms. It can cover rows of vines in less than a minute, extending and retracting automatically with the help of sensors. Cost is around €60 per metre and estimated lifespan of the product is 20 years – although the plastic tarpaulin will probably need replacing every five years.
For the past five years, the system has been tested in 10 properties in Bordeaux’s Gironde, under the direction of the IFV, the French Institute of Vine and Wine.
And since the beginning of the year, the system has been used on large areas of more than 10 rows in renowned chateaux such as Cheval Blanc, Lafite and Montrose.

The results show it:

• Secures the harvest. The Viti-Tunnel effectively protects the vineyards from crop losses due to diseases, frost and hail.
• Reduces the need for phytochemicals. The tunnel helps protect vines against diseases while reducing the use of phytosanitary products and sprayer passages.

Thanks to the investment from Demeter, Viti-Tunnel plans to open a mass-production plant at the end of the year, near Bordeaux. 
Patrick Delmarre, designer of the Viti-Tunnel, said: “As part of my activity as a plant protection specialist, I am in daily contact with winegrowers and I have been able to perceive their dismay in the face of the challenges they encountered. Indeed, they face the increase in the frequency of hazards linked to climate change and ever-increasing societal pressure for a drastic reduction in the use of pesticides. To help these helpless and deprived farmers, my ambition was to develop the Viti-Tunnel solution.
“Today, thanks to the hard work of our teams, and the financial support of our partners, we are proud to be able to offer such innovation, breaking with the traditional techniques of viticulture and agriculture in general. This fundraising supports and accelerates the commercial development of our activity, structuring our team and contributing to the continuation of our R&D work on other applications of the Viti-Tunnel.”
Stéphanie Hillard, investment director at Demeter, commented: “The ambition of Viti-Tunnel and its leaders aligns perfectly with the main objective of our VitiRev Innovation fund: reducing the use of phytosanitary products by viticulture. Their innovative technology has been proven and is ready for large-scale deployment.”
One of the wine estates testing the system is Château Montrose in the Saint-Estèphe appellation of the Bordeaux region. Ruben Pomar, head of R&D at the organic estate, said: “The Viti-Tunnel solution proposed by the company MO.DEL seemed to us interesting to study in our quest to limit the use of copper. After five years of testing at Château Montrose, Viti-Tunnel proved to be the only solution on the market able to fight against downy mildew significantly with less treatment.
“Even more, Viti-Tunnel showed us its ability to protect the vine against increasingly frequent climatic episodes linked to changes in climatic conditions such as spring frost and hail.”