French-owned winery Orlando Wyndham claims to be trialing a new technology which could save the Australian wine industry 50-70% of the irrigated water used in grape growing. The concept deploys sub-surface irrigation to reduce evaporation and uses a hormonal response to fool the vine into thinking it has received more water than it actually has. Developed in conjunction with the South Australian Research and Development Institute, the technology has huge potential to reduce water use in Australian horticulture and could lead to an annual saving of 250 gigalitres of water from viticulture alone.
