Why Lumo is the Linchpin for Dialing in Irrigation Precision at Woodhawk Vineyards
“Lumo has been the linchpin in the re-engineering of our approach to water management.”
Michael and Kara Busselen, the Owners of Woodhawk Vineyards, farm 21 acres of world-class Cabernet Sauvignon for Silver Oak, situated 1,000 feet above sea level, overlooking the Alexander Valley and Russian River at the northern end of Sonoma County. They're also starting to make some of their own high-end Cabernet.
Michael and Kara in the vineyard.
Over the past couple years, they’ve evolved their irrigation strategy in collaboration with Fruition Sciences and Redwood Empire Vineyard Management, supported by data from a sap flow monitor they have installed in one of their blocks.
The big shift in practice has been getting away from running relatively frequent, short-duration sets and moving toward running longer-duration irrigations less often. “Far fewer but far more strategic,” with the aim of improving the root architecture of the vines and, ultimately, increasing yield.
The challenge, however, was that their water tank holding capacity was only 55,000 gallons and their four wells couldn’t recharge the tanks fast enough to keep up. They didn’t have the necessary infrastructure in place to deliver those long duration sets without running out of water.
Capacity Constrained
“The problem with the old situation, with the manual valves and the wells, was that we would run out of water in our tanks and not be able to sustain the length of watering that was desired to happen.
“We wouldn't know how many gallons we put on before the tank ran dry because we couldn't accurately track flow rates. We didn’t know when we ran out of water.”
Part of the solution was to dig a fifth high-producing well, 450 feet deep in the ground, on the west side of the property. “So now we’re filling the tanks faster and there’s less lag time with moving water from one side of the property to the other.”
But that didn’t solve the lack of visibility into the volume of water applied. “That’s where Lumo comes in.”
“Now, with the Lumo valves installed, folks sitting at REVM in Geyserville 15 minutes away, or folks sitting in France half a world away, can be watching what's going on. They can look at the weather forecasts, schedule watering, and then they can actually see that the watering successfully takes place and the cycle gets completed.
“We know we've actually given the water that we wanted to give to the blocks in the timeframe that we wanted to give it, because now we have enough water and we have visibility in terms of what's going on in the vineyard.”
“Lumo has allowed us to go from twice a week irrigations for each vine to once every three weeks, plus or minus, depending on what part of the growing season we’re in. We just didn't have that ability before, “ added Tyler Klick, Partner and Viticulturist at REVM, who manages the day-to-day irrigation execution at the ranch. “It gives us that visibility to know exactly what's happening, when and where. And if we need to allow recharge time, we can do that. Then we can still get the right volume on because we know how much is left to complete the full irrigation.”
Precision, Labor and Yield
Lots of rain followed by perfect growing days and great fruit set has led to a record number of clusters.
“Success is the ability to deliver the right amount of water at the right time,” said Tyler. “And the other measurement is, did our irrigation cost line item go down over all. Is the ongoing cost less than what we were spending before?”
“It's time in the truck and man hours and efficiency. We're saving all the drive time from folks going back and forth from Geyserville up here in their trucks to deal with all this stuff and trying to figure out what's going wrong and check the tanks, check this, check that. Now we've got it all dialed in. We've got a record of the whole thing and that's an environmental plus as well,” added Michael.
“Water's just a huge issue, and it’s certainly not becoming less of an issue. Everybody wants to get the most out of the water they have. Everybody wishes they had more water, and getting more is incredibly expensive and bureaucratic. Sometimes you can’t get a permit to get more water.
“And the other thing we have going on is climate change. Basically every season we see another day over a hundred degrees than the previous year. It continues to get warmer and warmer, and that really plays into the irrigation strategy. We can't not have the water where it needs to be when we're gonna deal with multiple hundred degree days in a row.
“Efficiency is critical. Every piece of this puzzle is critical for a business owner.
“It’s essential to get your irrigation system dialed in, get the data, and squeeze the efficiencies out of the model. The goal is minimal cost and maximum return, which is called yield.
“If I get 2% more yield, over a couple of years I can completely erase the cost of the irrigation system technology upgrade. If we get the water to the right place and we get the yield up, then that line item becomes irrelevant. That's how little we need to affect the output in order to cover the cost.
“Lumo is the linchpin of what we've gone through the last few years, so that ultimately we can get the water where we need to, and we know exactly how much water we put on the vine.
“With Lumo and all the infrastructure improvements we’ve made, linked with all the weather data and the sap flow monitors and the consulting, suddenly this year we're looking at potentially the best yield on this vineyard than we've had in a very, very long time.“
Which works great for Woodhawk Vineyards, as they continue to farm for Silver Oak and produce their own Cabernet Sauvignon. With 170 cases of 2023 in the bottle, 280 cases of 2024 in the barrels, and 350 cases of 2025 on the vine, Woodhawk expects to release their 2023 debut vintage in early 2027. Anyone interested in joining the waitlist for these very limited-release Alexander Valley hilltop cabs should visit woodhawkvineyards.com to sign up for updates and release information.
And if you're looking for a way to gain block-level visibility and dial in your own irrigation precision, request a demo or contact us at [email protected]