#Agricolus success story: Cantine Lizzano and vineyard management

Luigi Ruggieri, an enlightened physician and farmer, brought together a group of winemakers back in 1959 to enhance local production, recovering ancient farming practices and combining them with modern winemaking techniques.

With the ’61 harvest, the Società Cooperativa Cantine Lizzano was born, named after the wine from the first grapes contributed by the 111 members.

One of the first examples of a short supply chain, awarded in 1989 with the recognition of Denominazione di Origine Controllata (DOC), today the cooperative is among the largest and most modern in southern Italy, with more than 400 winemaking members and 500 hectares of vineyards with native (Primitivo, Negroamaro, Malvasia, Moscato) and international (Chardonnay, Pinot and Cabernet) grape varieties.

The only one in Italy chaired by a woman, Rita Macripò, who carries on the cooperative’s founding values with the same passion as the founder.

The opportunity arose through collaboration with Chimiberg and Diagro (brands that identify crop defense and nutrition formulations of the Italian company Diachem S.p.A., respectively).

With the participation of Diachem and the technical support of Filippo Piacente (Field Marketing Specialist Centre-South East), we approached the Agricolus platform by taking advantage of GRAPEDSS and OLIWES solutions dedicated to the viticulture and olive sector.

Our need was precisely to make use of decision support systems to be able to set up a strategy to optimize the use of technical means used in the open field.

The platform has contributed to farm management, not only through the use of DSS and prescription maps, but also through the ability to manage crop activities and operations related particularly to fertilization and application of treatments.

The use of the platform, together with technical support and a database of Diachem products dedicated to vine and olive crops, has made it possible to create a synergy on several fronts, going to maximize the services that Precision Agriculture can and should offer in the short and long term to an important reality such as ours that involves over 400 members in the territory.

“Agricolus offers a precision agriculture platform with the possibility to better manage crop operations and main farm activities integrated with decision support system dedicated to single crops (in our case vine and olive).
These functions are definitely a valuable tool for the activities carried out daily in the field by our agronomic technicians.”