Improving Vineyard Water Use Efficiency

Reinventing Irrigation Systems to Conserve Water

Adrienne Uboldi was brought on to the Markham Vineyards team to ensure that the company’s green values were being reflected in the field.

Setting Efficiency Goals

One of Adrienne’s primary goals as Vineyard Manager was to get a handle on water use. She wanted to ensure that every drop was being used wisely — for the sake of the local groundwater basin that supplies her vineyards,
and the quality of the wine.

For help with all things irrigation, Adrienne contacted Miguel Garcia, Napa RCD’s Sustainable Agriculture Program Manager. Miguel and Adrienne enrolled Markham’s Calistoga vineyard for Napa RCD’s new irrigation toolkit service.

Toolkit Application Results

The vineyard was showing too much vigor, and Adrienne suspected that overwatering was to blame. The toolkit service uses grant funds to help growers purchase, install, and understand data from real-time moisture monitoring equipment of their choice.

On average, growers tend to use ~15% less water once they start monitoring moisture in the vineyard.

With Miguel’s help, Adrienne quickly saw the decision-making power of the probe. She used the data to convince her crews to cut back on watering. This summer, by tracking the soil moisture data, they decided that they didn’t need to irrigate at all! Inspired by the success of the program, Adrienne has been installing probes in all Markham vineyards in Napa County so that she may steward the precious resource of water more precisely moving forward.

The Resource Conservation Network gathers and shares the stories and ideas from its partners and colleagues. The opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect those of the RCDs managing this publication.