Frontier Global - Providing an invaluable resource to the New Zealand viticultural industry

5 June, 2007

Frontier Global is an amalgamation of the skills and resources of Frontier Mapping, New Zealand's predominant geographical mapping service for land care and land management, with Corbans Viticulture, New Zealand's leading viticulture nursery and development company.

One of the main services Frontier Global provide to the wine and broader agricultural industry is Electo-Magentic Induction (EMI) surveys. The principal objective of the survey is to define soil zones, prior to decisions on vineyard establishment. This information is used to provide recommendations on soil management. The survey can also be run on established vineyards to provide greater information for management about the different zones within the vineyard.

Frontier Global uses Geophex GEM-2 EMI sensor equipment and are the only company with a unit of this kind in Australasia. This equipment produces highly accurate and useful information at multiple levels through the soil profile in a single pass. The purpose of undertaking an EMI survey of this kind is to provide a snapshot firstly of soil variation across the property being surveyed, and secondly, of depth variation at any point. From this base data, a number of inferences are made regarding the ability of each major soil zone to hold and transport water and minerals. Most importantly however, the snapshot allows soil management zones to be defined and that in turn enable soil professionals to economically target follow-up pits and sampling and direct their subsequent recommendations to optimum benefit, taking into account the variability patterns.

An EMI unit works by pulsing an electromagnetic field through the ground and measuring a returning signal against a background field. Different ground conditions distort the returning signal in different ways. The frequency of the transmitted signal determines the depth of penetration. The GEM-2 is a multi-channel unit that transmits a range of frequencies resulting in simultaneous penetration of the survey to differing depth ranges. By plotting the data spatially we produce a soil variability map and based on a mix of science and experience, are usually able to draw some general conclusions about the resulting patterns.

While the measurement, data processing and plotting process is based on solid scientific principles, the interpretation of results is more subjective and requires a mix of knowledge of the area, a geological or soil science background and experience with the equipment in different terrains. Walking the property with maps in hand and discussion with people familiar with the farming history, can often explain particular observations e.g. a former silage pit site or a particular fertilizer application history.

The benefits of this service and the science behind it are exact boundaries for soil changes and consequently different management of the zones, or root stock selection to best suit the characteristics of that zone. On a per hectare basis this service is very good value for helping to make informed decisions about your land and potentially understanding its behaviour and providing a better return on investment as a result of this knowledge.

A summary of the other services Frontier Global offer the wine industry are:

Site mapping - Using differential GPS to vineyard layouts to sub-metre precision. Includes block/row/plant layouts and infrastructure detail. Accurate distance and area measurements e.g. crop block area and total contained row length.

Satellite imagery - Through relationships with selected international companies Frontier Global is able to offer a satellite image service. The company is able to request a “fly over” of a specific area and have high quality photos taken of that area. The main benefits of the service are that it is current as at the day it was taken (so not archived files) and it is also very reasonably priced when you compare it against alternative methods and consider the service and the technology involved in providing the image.

Modeling - Computer modeling for optimization of new planting layouts and associated computation (e.g. available area for planting; post or plant numbers). Rotatable 3D depictions and fly-throughs. Physical modeling for office or exhibition displays.

Regional mapping - Regional site location maps. Vineyards located on district, regional or country scale topographic and/or cadastral base. Appropriate for marketing boards, sector administrators and buyers.

Geographic Information Systems (GIS) - Interactive CDs using maps to access, depict and analyse enterprise data. A Frontier Atlas is an application that links maps interactively to databases, spreadsheets, photos, graphics, or text documents. Applicability ranges from simple project viewing to full enterprise management solutions.