Our farm has long focused on reducing the impacts of its activities, especially in those that occur to benefit the vineyards and the harvest. Today we tell you about our successes by focusing on the important issue of WATER.
Water is a precious commodity that must be safeguarded by each of us. Drought, climate crisis and waste reduction are issues that affect us more than ever before.
In our own small way, we try to reduce the impacts of our farming activities by using technological alternatives that enable us to achieve this goal.
To this end, we have long since begun to install, in our green lung, subirrigation systems, which is a system of pipes that run directly underground in the rows, close to the roots of the vines. In this way, water reaches the target directly and problems of loss due to evaporation are avoided, especially during the warmer months. Compared to classical systems, such as runoff or sprinkling, this system is much more efficient, being able to reach the roots directly, reducing dispersion. In addition, the water is absorbed in a more targeted way by our plants, preventing pests from taking advantage of it, thus reducing competition. Finally, this underground design avoids any obstacles to manual or mechanical work.
To date, more than 90 percent of our vineyards have subirrigation, which is subject to strict ongoing monitoring to detect any leaks, which are much less visible than with aboveground systems, with all the risks that can follow in terms of waste.
Drop-by-drop irrigation systems had previously been installed in all the vineyards, through a system of low-pressure pipes attached directly to the rows, about 50 to 60 centimeters above the ground. This system already ensured less water loss to traditional techniques, as most of the water falls directly on the part of the soil where the roots themselves are located, allowing a reduced amount to be used. Over the next few months, the remaining vineyard that still has the drip irrigation system will also be converted to sub-irrigation.
The switch to subirrigation is therefore a further step towards a more sustainable and less impactful way of farming, a path we have been on since the birth of our winery. Settimo In fact, Pizzolato tells us that already in the 1980s he had installed the first drip irrigation systems in his vineyards, immediately paying attention to avoiding waste of such a precious commodity as water is.
