Special Session 15

The wine sector stands as a cornerstone within agricultural activities, boasting a rich tapestry of vineyards marked by profound heterogeneity. This diversity stems from myriad structural factors such as pedo-morphological traits, alongside dynamic variables like cropping methodologies and seasonal weather patterns. Within this landscape, the integration of Agriculture 4.0 technologies emerges as a pivotal means to bolster vineyard management, fostering enhanced efficiency and quality in production while mitigating environmental footprints. With this backdrop, the focal point of this specialized session revolves around assembling experts, researchers, and practitioners to discern the most compelling advancements in intelligent vineyard management.

By delving into different domains (such as proximal and remote sensning, variable rate technologies, advanced mechanization and automation, machine learning,...), the session aims to unravel novel strategies and innovations that promise to redefine the contours of vineyard management, forging pathways toward a more sustainable and technologically adept future for the wine industry.

TOPICS

Key topics slated for discussion encompass:

Variable Rate Application and Precision Vineyard Management;
Information Communication Technologies in Viticulture;
Remote and Proximal Sensing for Soil, Crop, and Environmental Monitoring;
Advanced Mechanization and Robotics in Viticulture;
Machine Learning and Image Analysis Applications;
Sustainability Imperatives in Vineyard Operations.

ABOUT THE ORGANIZERS

Jacopo Bacenetti, is currently an Associate professor at the Department of Environmental Science and Policy - Universita Statale degli Studi of Milano, Italy. He obtained the Ph.D. in 2009 and further had a post-doc fellowship until 2016. From September 2016, he is researcher in Agricultural Mechanics. His research interests focus on the Biosystems engineering with particular attention to the environmental impact evaluation of agricultural and agro-food systems (in particular with the Life Cycle Assessment approach). He has authored or co-authored more than 100 manuscripts or chapters in international journals or books and has made numerous contributions to international conferences as presenter or chairman.

Alessandro Zanchin, got a master degree in agricultuaral sciences in 2020, and since then he has had collaborations with several private companies as a winery consultant in the Veneto region. In 2023 he completed his PhD at the University of Padova, focusing on precision viticulture, digitalisation, three-dimensional reconstruction of grapevine bunches and fruit morphology evaluation. During his PhD, he joined international conferences and round tables and wrote several technical papers to disseminate research outcomes. Also, he spent six months at the University of La Rioja, Spain, focusing on artificial intelligence applications in viticulture. Finally, he gained a postdoc researcher position in the wine and food processing field at the University of Padova.

Andrea Bacchetti, is researcher at the University of Brescia (Italy); in 2011 he holds a doctoral degree in Design and Management of Production and Logistic Systems at the same university. His research involves supply chain management, demand forecasting, inventory management and, recently, digital manufacturing. He is member of the Research and Innovation for Smart Enterprises Laboratory (www.rise.it) and he is senior partner at IQ Consulting (www.iqconsulting.it), a spin-off of University of Brescia. He is author of more than 40 scientific publications on international conferences and journals.

Daniele Sarri, is researcher at the University of Firenze. Since 2008 he has been carrying out research in the sectors of agro-forestry biosystems engineering with particular reference to agricultural mechanics and mechanization. In the last years he has been involved in research relating to the modeling and optimization of the olive- and vine-growing supply chains with particular attention to mechanization of cultivation operations, analysis and optimization of biomass-energy aspects, harvesting, transport and conditioning operations.
At present he currently carries out his research activity in the field of new technologies for robotics in agriculture, precision agriculture, mechanization and automation in agriculture with particular reference to the use of technologies for computerized management and farm traceability.

Pierluigi Rossi, holds a PhD in Engineering and is a research associate in the Department of Agriculture and Forest Sciences at Tuscia University, Viterbo, Italy. He also holds a Master's Degree in Safety Engineering from Sapienza University (Rome, Italy), and he completed his PhD studies in Engineering for Energy and the Environment at Tuscia University. He is currently working on research regarding smart agricultural machinery and is part of several national projects regarding safety at work.

Leonardo Bianchini, is a researcher at the University of Tuscia, where he earned a PhD in 2021 and was a Research Assistant between 2021 and 2022 at the Department of Agriculture and Forest Sciences. He is passionate about trees, arboriculture, and urban forestry, especially planning and management, with a particular focus on defects and biomechanics, up to and including soil disturbances such as compaction. He has also worked on agro-forestry and agro-industrial residual biomass, which continues to be his main focus.

Andrea Pagliai is a researcher at the Department of Agriculture, Food, Environment and Forestry (DAGRI) of the University of Florence. He obtained his PhD in Agro-Forestry Engineering (AGR/09) in 2023, analysing different proximal sensing techniques to assess the tree canopy in order to improve the environmental and economic sustainability of crop protection stages through the use of variable-rate technologies. He is currently involved in the study of UAV spraying technologies in different contexts and crops (vines, olives and rice) to quantify canopy deposition and analyse spray drift, ground losses and operator exposure to pesticides. He is an adjunct professor at the University of Florence, where he teaches teaching the course "Procurement and Process Optimisation in Renewable Energy Sources".