Application domain
Viticulture
Terroir is not an idea. It is a soil depth, a texture, a water reserve — quantities you can measure.
The questions
Read the terroir before working it.
The vine expresses soil better than any other crop. The point is knowing what it expresses, and over what distance that changes.
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Where to plant, and on which rootstock?
Usable depth and water stress can change over twenty metres. Knowing that before planting avoids thirty years of compromise.
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How should vinification units be drawn?
Intra-parcel zoning based on soil lets you harvest and vinify separately what ripens differently.
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Why does this zone suffer in a dry year?
Low water reserve, rising bedrock, a change of texture. Mapping identifies the physical origin of the stress.
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Should we irrigate, and where?
Where the reserve is structurally low — not uniformly. The map sets the layout and the sizing.
Explorer
Terroir in section.
Drag the marker down. Rooting depth and the depth to bedrock decide most of it.
- Topsoil and texture 0 – 0.4 m ARP®
- Rooting zone 0.3 – 1 m ARP®
- Water reserve and stress 0 – 1.2 m ARP®
- Depth to bedrock 0.8 – 2 m ARP®
- Deep heterogeneity 1 – 3 m EMP
Investigation strategy
The methods deployed.
In vineyards the constraint is as physical as it is agronomic: narrow rows, slopes, stony ground. The equipment has to pass without damage.
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ARP®
Electrical resistivity
The reference method for vineyard zoning: depth, texture and water reserve in a single pass.
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EMP
Electromagnetics
Reaches deeper than towed resistivity, to six metres, for the geological context.
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GPR
Ground-penetrating radar
Pins down the depth of an interface or rock bench exactly where the planting decision is made.
Projects
Work in this sector.
Terroir maps, intra-parcel zoning, planting studies.
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Viticulture
In preparation
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Before / after
In preparation
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GCServer
In preparation
Content in preparation.
Map your vineyard?
Estates, châteaux, cooperatives: from a single parcel to an entire vineyard.