Software: The Key for Successful Premium Vineyard Management

U. Sosnik,   L. Galvin,   S. Pleban

Cultivation of premium grapes presents a complex management challenge. The grower must simultaneously address multiple issues to maximize his returns in a sustainable manner over the long run while meeting ever increasing government regulations. The grower must decide about the use of fertilizers, equipment, employees, chemicals, canopy management, grafting, rootstock, budgeting, and irrigation. Those decisions are based on real time crop estimations, sugar levels, brix, soil nutrition, PHI and tissue/leaf analysis and tracking costs. The best tool available today for achieving those goals is the Tiger Jill suite from Orange Enterprises.

Orange Enterprises has been developing Tiger Jill since 1984 to address the challenges of premium vineyard management. The main driving force behind the usefulness of the software is the growers that use the software. They are the ones that lead the direction of its development. They understand the true needs of their industry and understand what the software can do for them. The result is more than 70 different modules that were developed to address different aspects of vineyard management. Orange Enterprises has developed several avenues to interact with the users and to solicit their input to add functionality. Those avenues include ongoing telephone and email interaction and an annual conference where the users suggest new directions for the software as well as via on site visits. Orange Enterprises rapid response in incorporating the suggestions into the software encourages them to come up with fresh and useful new ideas.

Tiger Jill was designed to address all aspects of field management. It is comprised of modules that make it possible to provide growers with an optimal tool. Orange Enterprises has dedicated a special effort to meet the challenges of premium vineyard management. The software handles the basic needs of recording all cultivation activities including pesticides, fertilizers, irrigations and canopy management. It produces all the reports required by the agricultural commissioners including Monthly Pesticide Use, Notice of Intent, Seven Day Use, Monthly Non Crop and Worker Protection Standard Notification. Modules of Tiger Jill minimize the time and effort required to comply with reporting regulation by facilitating the electronic transmittal of the reports over the internet.  Additional modules produce reports that are required by processors in the United States and abroad.

A measurement module is designed to record all parameters needed to make real time critical management decision like crop estimations, sugar levels, brix, soil nutrition, PHI and tissue/leaf analysis.

Additional modules handle the economical aspects of the operation; recording the exact cost of every material, activity, labor and equipment used. The program makes it possible to prepare detailed budgets and compare, at every point of time actual versus planned or compare the cost of growing the same variety in different locations. Other modules track the equipment usage and offers tools to assure proper maintenance and optimal utilization.

Employee safety is the focus of another module that records the employee exposure to pesticide and assures that employees do not enter fields before the allowed reentry time and get the appropriate blood test if exposed to pesticide that require such tests.

Tiger Jill is designed to address the unique needs of large premium vineyard management firms that handle multiple ranches in multiple locations. The billing module of the program makes it possible to handle complex billing approaches and verify that all activities of the management firm are charged to the customer.  The connectivity module of the program makes it possible to have multiple databases in different locations coordinated with a single database at the main office. The label verification module allows for the main office to set recommended application rates for the various materials. The program verifies that the main office policies are implemented in all the ranches managed by the firm.

Tiger Jill includes an interface with many popular accounting software in agriculture like Famous and QuickBooks. This interface reduces the need for double entry. Billing, payments and inventory information entered in Tiger Jill is sent directly to the accounting package there is no need for double entry that wastes time and causes errors.

Tiger Jill includes an Organic Management module that makes it possible for growers with organic blocks verify that only organic materials are used. It issues a warning message whenever a non-organic material is recommended to be used and it also produces a report that proves that only organic materials were used.

Tiger Jill harnesses the latest technologies to be used by premium vineyard managers. It can record the exact location of any measurement using GPS (Global Positioning System) devices that retrieve from satellites the coordinates of the measurement location. An interface module was developed to send data from Tiger Jill to the ArcView GIS (Geographic Information System) software. This interface allows the map presentation of all the data in Tiger Jill. It makes if possible to draw maps of pesticide usage, yields, reentry and allowed harvest.

Pocket Jill, the Pocket PC program, of the suite brings the advantages of quality software to the field and practically eliminated the usage of paper outside the office. Work orders are created in the office and sent electronically to a Pocket PC device that is carried to the field by the employee that executes them. The employee follows the instructions of the Handheld Device and records on the spot the actual application, the conditions, the employees and equipment used. This information is later sent back electronically to the office. The same Pocket Jill is also used by the Pest Control Advisor in the field. The PCA records the conditions in the field and considering the entire history of the field determines the best approach for tackling the specific pest condition that he is witnessing.

The best evidence for the software usefulness and Orange Enterprises responsiveness to the growers’ is found in testimonials published in several agricultural publications. Here are a few examples:

Todd Berg, a Pest Control Advisor for Sutter Homes Vineyards, in St Helena, California testifies that the software has helped the company scrutinize spending on all their vineyards over five counties. In his words: "We use Tiger Jill at the end of the year for budget making purposes," Berg said. "We look at what we were spending on pest control inputs for that previous year and evaluate what we've been doing from a cost standpoint and also to make more accurate budgets. Maybe we can try and put together more cost effective programs in the future, such as some vineyards maybe we don't have to budget as much for powdery mildew in certain climates. You can print out to the dollar what you're spending on different pest or disease pathogens in the vineyard. It's a record of what we did. If we want to go back two years from now, rather than something written on some note, we can actually see what we applied, and what we spent on it. There have been a few occasions where I've been asked what's been our fertility program in the last five years, and the information was there through Tiger Jill.”

Input from vineyard management companies has been invaluable to the growth of Orange Enterprises’ programs. They have contributed to the development of the equipment module, an expansion of the billing modules to include charges for labor, harvest and irrigation. Their needs to provide their customers more management functionality also brought about the traceability module with EurepGAP documentation.

Matt Ashby, Vineyard Manager of Franciscan Vineyards in Soledad California says, “In one click of the mouse I get in Spanish all the work orders that I have entered in English. Unbelievable!”

Sara Savary, Vice President of Crop Care Associates, Inc. of St Helena California, jokes that before using Pocket Jill she used to be afraid that in the event her truck rolled over she will be injured by flying heavy binders that she kept in her backseat. Those binders were housing pesticide labels, pesticide recommendations and scouting reports. Since she began using Pocket Jill on her Pocket PC, about three years ago, all she carries in the backseat now are a few skinny integrated pest management manuals. Not only does the Pocket PC fit in her shirt pocket, but it stores all her data in one location increasing her efficiency and allowing her to compare seasonal trends. “My whole thing was I had data in so many different places that it was hard to get to. Years and years of notebooks and papers, and you couldn’t refer to it,” says Savary, “What did I do last year? You couldn’t do anything else with the data.” About four years ago, Sara Savary approached Dr. Shlomo Pleban, R &D Director of Orange Enterprises about developing software that would allow her to do her job with a Pocket PC in the field. As a long time Tiger Jill user she was instrumental in the development of Pocket Jill. Three years ago, Sara took a beta version of Pocket Jill into the field to test. Today her data is in her pocket wherever she goes. She uses the software to record everything from fertility, pests and trap counts, and all other agronomy variables. She writes her customers’ fertilizer and chemical recommendations while continuing to accumulate their agronomical data. She has with her at all times her customers’ complete database to assist them whenever needed. “I used to have to spend maybe two hours, maybe three, putting in data and writing up recommendations,” Sara says. “I would write them by hand and fax them out.” Now when she’s through for the day she plugs the Pocket PC into a phone line to email the data which is contained in a small text file, to the office desktop computer. “It takes me a third, maybe one-quarter of the time now,” Sara says. “I can fax recommendations right from Tiger Jill or I can email them, so I don’t have reams and reams and reams of paper. It takes me so much less time, but there’s so much more to do.” Sara also uses the Pocket Jill to manage her scouting notes. She records trap counts, observations and uses a digital camera to incorporate images into the diary she creates with the measurement module. These records when uploaded into Tiger Jill on her desktop allow her to generate the reports needed by her customers for exportation. The incorporation of images was a need Sara brought to Orange Enterprises for development.

Vicki Thorpe of Walsh Vineyard Management in Napa, California approached Orange Enterprises looking for a better way to handle the invoicing of their management services. Enhancements were made to the billing and accounts receivable functions to handle their management and labor charges, materials sold and equipment usage.

Max Jehle a Vineyard Manager of Sunview Vineyards, whose main office is in Delano California with ranches all over the state are using the software for recording all the vineyards inputs and expenditures. Separate Tiger Jill programs are located in the different ranches. They transmit data to the main office where an integrated picture of the entire operation is compiled. Max realized that the program can be enhanced to help him with exporting grapes to the European Union countries. Those countries require reports that comply with the EurepGAP requirements. He requested the new reports and they were added in a short time to the program.

Jack Pandol the president of Grapery of Bakersfield, California manages his vineyards as well as provides consulting for others. He uses Tiger Jill in his truck to record all of his and his customer’s activities including fertilization and irrigation.  From his truck he electronically sends recommendations to his customers, to applicators and other PCA’s allowing for constant sharing of data.

Via wireless networking Scheid Vineyards in Greenfield, California Shawn Vessey, their managers, PCA’s and viticulturalists directly input data into their Tiger Jill server from the fields. They maintain a comprehensive database that allows for better control of inventory and costs. The PCA’s generate recommendations and with those same records stay in compliance with federal, state and county reporting and recordkeeping requirements.

Constellation Wineries headquartered in Rutherford, CA, uses Tiger Jill in many of their vineyards like Franciscan, Estancia, Simi and more for producing work orders in English and Spanish as well as to accumulate all the associated agronomical data.

Joseph Phelps Vineyards in St Helena, California, has been using Tiger and Pocket Jill for many years to record all their viticultural activities. They maintain an extensive database in the office that also includes GIS. Philippe Pessereau, Vineyard Operation Manager carries Pocket Jill with him that contains all the data from Tiger Jill. This provides him quick access to their history and activities so he can make decisions on the spot.

Even California’s Agricultural commissioners have influenced the development of Tiger Jill with the need for electronic transfer of data to their computers. Erin Amaral at Pacific Vineyards in San Luis Obispo, California was very helpful in the development of the Tiger Jill Web Service module.  Pacific Vineyards has been a customer for many years. They use the Tiger Jill software for producing work orders, tracking irrigation, and accumulating cultural activities, cost accounting, tracking fertilizer use and much more.

Brendan Flynn, President of Pacific Farms in Gerber, California stood up during an annual seminar and said “Since we are collecting all the field data for the office why not the payroll data too?” This steered Orange Enterprises to its next endeavor, software for collecting payroll information in the fields.

Payroll Employee Tracking (P.E.T. Tiger) the newest member of the Tiger family uses an employee's own barcode or RFID badges for payroll data collection. P.E.T. Tiger can also provide the means of capturing data about work flow, labor allocation, job costing, inventory utilization, harvest information and many other facets of a business. P.E.T. Tiger handles hourly rates, piece pay by individuals and piece pay by crew. It handles minimum hourly pay requirements and mandatory breaks. Defaults are maintained to minimize the number of scans necessary. Electronic processing and data storage replaces paper to improve the efficiency and accuracy of crop harvesting. View data as it comes in, and, if necessary, edit it right there! Change sort orders and filters to make it easy to group the information in a way that makes sense.

With Orange Enterprises’ Tiger Jill suite of software you can manage it all. Due to the individual differences among vineyard operations adaptation of Orange Enterprises’ suite of software in their respective operations would be a function of their specific needs and goals in line with the modules. It is not a “canned” package. The software provides new and existing customers with a whole host of modules as well as ongoing custom development. Kendall Jackson in California, Biltmore Estates in North Carolina, Ron Wicker Management in Rutherford, West Coast Grape Farming, Foppiano Wineries, Flowers Vineyards, Sterling Vineyards, Mesa Vineyards, Columbine Vineyards (M. Caratan,) Winegrowers and hundreds of others use Orange Enterprises’ software to do any or all of the following:

Detailed Pesticide/Fertilizer Recommendation or Work Orders, Sampling, Complete Spray History, Employee Exposure, Safety, Training, Labor Tracking, Site Mapping, Organic Material Use Verification, Crop Estimates & Vine Counts, Genetically Modified, Rootstocks, Canopy Management, Grafting, Sugar Levels, Brix, Soil Nutrition, PHI and Tissue/leaf analysis,  Irrigation, Harvest Records with Lot Numbers, Quality and Grade, Export Documentation, Ingredient Analysis Reports, Summarized Application Reports, Cost Accounting Reports, Multiple Inventories, Purchase Orders, Summarized or Detailed Inventory Reports, Budgeting, Spray Calculator, Material Mixes, Spanish, Export to Outlook Calendar, Banding, MSDS and Label Internet Links and Connectivity to all other software..

Vineyard management companies also take advantage of Tiger and Pocket Jill’s following features and modules:

Complete Accounts Receivable, Detailed or Summarized Invoices and Statements, Billing of Application, Labor Charges, and Materials/Parts sold, Aging Summary Report, Customer Discounts, Prepayments, Credit Memos/Returns, Service/Finance Charges, Interface to Accounting Software, Equipment Maintenance Schedules, and Equipment Costs.

Small, medium and large vineyards as well as vineyard management companies use Tiger and Pocket Jill to be in compliance with:

Good Agricultural Practice, EurepGAP, Restricted Use Pesticide Reporting, Worker Protection Standards, Air Quality Control, All States Use Reporting, Reentry & Harvest Intervals, Verification of Label Limits, and Permit Verification.

Orange Enterprises’ mission is to continue to tailor fit new innovations in technology into their customers needs. Anyone with an idea or a need to enhance their vineyard or operation management should contact Orange Enterprises at (800) 656-7264 or visit their website at www.OrangeSoftware.com.