A Comparative Study of Satellite and Ground-Based Vineyard Phenology

Grapevine phenology observations are essential for ecological adaptability of grape varieties, crop management and crop modelling. Phenological events have traditionally been ground based, with observations mainly providing information concerning grape varieties over a limited spatial area and few inseason observations. Time-series of satellite imagery can rapidly provide a synoptic and objective view of grape vegetation dynamics that may be used for vineyard management. Ten-day VEGETATION image composites from 1999 to 2007 were used to examine temporal profile in the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) and their relationship with ground based observation of grapevine phenology. In Portugal is Douro wine region, 2 suitable tests sites with over 70% or more of their area occupied by grapevines were selected. A number of NDVI metrics were obtained for each year through logistic model adjusted to NDVI time series after noise reduction using a Savitzky-Golay filter. The comparison of ground-based vineyard phenology and satellite-derived flowering, show an average spread deviation of 3 days. The satellite derived full canopy date was significantly correlated to the veraison date (r=0.87; n=7; p<0.02). The data set provided by the VEGETATION sensor proved to be a valuable tool for vineyard monitoring, mainly for inter-annual comparisons on regional scale.