Viti Pulse launches a vineyard platform that targets needless fungicide sprays

Viti Pulse, a new digital platform for vineyard management, was introduced on October 30 with a focus on helping growers make more informed decisions about disease control, vine development and seasonal planning.

The company, based in Melbourne, said the platform was built to address a long-standing problem in commercial viticulture: fungicide programs that often follow fixed 10-to-14-day spray intervals even when weather conditions do not support infection. According to the company, that routine can lead to unnecessary applications, higher labor and fuel costs, and missed chances to match treatment more closely to actual disease pressure.

Viti Pulse said its system uses weather data, scientific disease models and vine phenology to assess risk for major vineyard diseases, especially downy mildew and powdery mildew. The platform is intended to support vineyard managers and viticulturists as they decide when conditions may justify closer attention and when routine spraying may be reconsidered. The company said the tool is meant to complement field inspections, local disease observations, product label requirements and advice from agronomists, rather than replace them.

A central part of the platform is its disease forecasting model for downy mildew. Viti Pulse said it separates primary infection from later secondary infection cycles to reflect the different biological stages of the disease. The company said the primary infection model is based on research published by Rossi and colleagues in 2008, while the secondary infection model uses a Brischetto-based framework from 2021.

The platform also includes heat accumulation tools commonly used in viticulture. Viti Pulse said it incorporates both Growing Degree Days, or GDD, and Gladstones Biologically Effective Degree Days, known as BEDD. Those measures are used to track vine development through the season and to compare seasonal progress with expected growth stages. The company said the platform includes variety-specific phenological thresholds for more than 45 grape varieties, allowing users to monitor expected timing for flowering, veraison and maturity.

The release described the product as combining several types of vineyard information in one system, including disease forecasting, thermal accumulation calculations and what the company called AI-powered vineyard insights. It did not provide further technical detail about how those artificial intelligence features operate, but said the aim is to make scientific viticulture tools more practical for everyday use.

Viti Pulse also made a performance claim about its disease models, saying risk model accuracy exceeded 97.5% under evaluated conditions. The company said those results should be interpreted in the context of the specific model, validation dataset and evaluation method, and that outcomes may vary depending on location, vineyard conditions and the quality of weather data.

The company said the platform has been tested across wine-growing regions in Australia, New Zealand, the United States, South Africa, Italy, France, Spain and the United Kingdom. That international testing, it said, was intended to show the platform could be used across different climates and production systems.

The launch comes as wine-grape growers in many regions face pressure to reduce input costs and respond more precisely to changing seasonal conditions. In that environment, tools that tie spray decisions and crop development more closely to weather patterns are drawing attention across the industry. Viti Pulse said its platform was developed around the idea that more detailed, weather-driven information can help growers make better operational decisions over the course of the season.