Cape Town, April 21, 2011 - Getmapping subsidiary Geosense, in partnership with Precision Surveys has just completed a successful aerial and ground based acquisition program in the Western Cape focused primarily on the wine producing regions. The program undertaken during February and March of this year captured over 130,000 hectares of vineyards including farms in CapeTown, Hermanus, Grabouw, Stellenbosch, Franschoek and Piketberg.
The program provides Viticulturists with true colour and colour infrared orthorectified imagery as well as a normalised difference vegetation index (NDVI) map at high resolution (25cm Ground Sampled Distance). These are used as tools to assess the quality of the vines pre-veraison (prior to ripening).
Timing of the program is crucial as the maps must be provided when the fruit is still on the vine. Vineyards are normally divided into blocks and are frequently not uniform. The maps indicate the vines vitality and vigour and allow the wine maker to grade the vines into sub-blocks or ‘zonal management units’. This helps the winemaker to plan the vintage, enabling batches of similar fruit to be harvested and fermented together.
NDVI maps are also used to indicate potential problems within blocks and as they are orthorectified, field sampling with GPS can be undertaken to determine whether the problems highlighted are pest, nutritional, water or disease related.
“This has been a very successful beginning to our Precision Farming program here in the Western Cape, and development in other agricultural sectors such as apple and citrus crops looks very promising” said Matt Murphy Director of Geosense. “Subsequent data capture will provide customers with even more content and other value added services such as 0.25m contours and irrigation mapping. We intend to make much of this program available in a new online GIS service for farmers towards the end of the year” continued Murphy.
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About Getmapping Plc
Getmapping Plc is a leading provider of aerial photography, digital mapping and web based services. With offices in Hartley Wintney, Hampshire and Cape Town, South Africa, Getmapping was the first company to have up to date nationwide coverage of Britain and pioneered online delivery of aerial photography to business and the public at large. A reseller of professional mapping, oblique photography, height data, OS maps and third party aerial photography, Getmapping services a wide variety of markets including press and media, local authorities, property and construction, environmental consultants and the public. It also provides a number of value added mapping products and services tailored to specific client needs including data hosting, online data delivery and web-based GIS. A pioneer of many online products through its website, Getmapping is the only company currently re-flying the whole of the UK at enhanced 12.5cm resolution.
Press contact: Chris Kelly
T: +44(0) 1252 849436 E: press@getmapping.com
Sales: Matt Murphy
T: +27 (0)21 945 1072 E: matt@geosense.co.za