Honig Winery applies pressure bombs for better vineyard irrigation
October 27, 2010 | Length: 00:02:17
SmartPlanet visits Honig Vineyard & Winery in Napa Valley and sees their 'green' practices up close, which include a solar array that produces energy for 100 percent of the winery's operations and a pressure bomb--a device they use to improve irrigation practices.
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Transcript
Music Michael Honig: So how's your harvest going today? So inaudible. Sumi Das: Michael Honig is the owner of Honig Winery, a small family-owned vineyard nestled in the Napa Valley. Honing's approach to business? Profitability and sustainability go together like a crisp glass of Sauvignon Blanc and some fresh oysters. Michael Honig: If you can lower your cost and still put out a better product and leave a small footprint, we're perfect. So that's why we do is not only to help the world and help ourselves, but also because it keeps us as a stronger business. Sumi Das: Everywhere you look on Honig's 70 acres of vineyard land, green practices abound, from installing a 145-kilowatt solar array -- Michael Honig: We have approximately 819 panels, so we can create enough energy to actually power the whole winery. Sumi Das: -- To building bluebird nests to ward off invasive insects. Michael Honig: They create their nests, and the reason we love bluebirds is they eat quite a few insects. Something like this that are eating insects are keeping the insect population very low, so something to really encourage them. It's a way to keep the insects out of the property. Sumi Das: Honig is also focused on conserving water. Years ago, the winery would flood irrigate to water the vineyard, but it was wasteful and difficult to monitor. Today, Honig uses a device known as a pressure bong. Michael Honig: This is used to basically determine how much moisture is in this plant, and based on that calculation, we can determine how much water we need to give it or not give it. so basically how it works is you take the top off here, grab a leaf, put it in here, put the leaf in the chamber, and then what we would do is we would basically push this pressure so this gauge starts to increase in pressure. And then when this leaf stem starts to push out a little water, we know to stop, and that gives us the calculation of how much water is in the plant, and then we can determine whether we need to water or not. Sumi Das: Honig Winery, a smart, sustainable business in the heartland of the wine country. For Smart Planet, I'm Sumi Das.
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==== Transcribed by Automatic Sync Technologies ====