2023 - Pheasants Tears Vineyard Kakheti Georgia with a retired Qvivri and Regrarians Lisa Heenan catching some winter sun - Thanks to John Wurdeman V for his incredible hospitality

Vineyards

Vitis vinifera (grape vine)
Planning
Site Preparation
Establishment

Over the journey we have been involved in a small number of vineyard projects—mostly in central Victoria and more recently we have been involved in some larger projects internationally.

In 1995 we were approached by Nada & Tony Smark, who had just purchased ‘Woodbrook Farm’ a 30ha (75ac) farm in Harcourt North in central Victoria. In the early 1970’s Nada lived in northern New South Wales and became friends with Ken Yeomans, P.A. Yeomans’ youngest son and was exposed to ‘The Keyline Plan’. A quarter of a century later and after selling their successful Bendigo printing business, Nada recalled those times and both her and Tony were keen to ‘Keyline’ their new farm.

We had a ‘Wallace Plow’ at the time and it wasn’t suitable for soil preparation and so Nada and Tony proposed that we would prepare the first of their two vineyards in exchange for new Yeomans Keyline Plow. This exchange led to the world’s first vineyards (Shiraz & Merlot) that followed Keyline geometry, with the soils prepared using ‘Keyline Pattern Cultivation’.

Following those efforts we installed a few other vineyards in the region, however none of these followed Keyline geometry and it wasn’t until 2023 that we had the opportunity to design another Keyline vineyard, this is time for ‘Udabno Regenerative Farming’—200ha (500ac) of a 20,000ha (50,000ac) estate in the Republic of Georgia—the designs of which we developed remotely and which in 2024 were then installed using precision GPS tractor guidance system technology.

In this era of precision agriculture we use either/both LiDAR & photogrammetry based data for aerial photography, NDVI analysis and digital elevation models (DEM) for our base maps. Following site analysis which includes detailed agronomic soil assays, we then combine the use of QGIS (DEM processing for topographic contour creation, slope and true distance analysis), AutoDesk Civil3D (vineyard layout) and Overyield (bills of quantity and tractor-guidance system output) to provide plans that tractors can then ‘print’ on the landscape within 2cm of positional accuracy.

In 2023 Regrarians was invited by Familia Torres to become a founder of the ‘Asociación Viticultura Regenerativa’, the world’s leading regenerative viticulture alliance and certification organisation.

2007 - Harcourt North (VIC, AU) - Woodbrook Farm Keyline geometry function sketch from Regrarians webinar - Image Credit: Regrarians (Darren J Doherty & Bruce Hedge (1998 Aerial Photo)
1998 - Harcourt North (VIC, AU) - Woodbrook Farm Keyline vineyard - Image Credit: Regrarians (Darren J Doherty)
2009 - Harcourt North (VIC, AU) - Woodbrook Farm Keyline geometry vineyard & farm forestry; Keypoint barrier dam - Image Credit: Google Earth Pro (Maxar)
2010 - Harcourt North (VIC, AU) - Woodbrook Farm Keyline geometry vineyard - Image Credit: realestate.com.au
2023 - Sataple, Kakheti, Georgia - One of many soil pits we had excavated with a local back hoe to around 2m to perform a visual inspection of the soils proposed for a white grape vineyard - Image Credit: Regrarians (Darren J Doherty)
2024 - Sataple, Kakheti, Georgia - Satellite image of Udabno Regenerative Farm’s vineyard rows ripped following both curved and straight-line Keyline geometry. All of these rows were ripped using Fendt tractors which were fitted with FJDynamics RTK-GNSS guidance systems and used files we exported using Propagate’s Overyield software - Image Credit: Google Earth Pro (Maxar)
2024 - Sataple, Kakheti, Georgia - CAD vineyard rows overlaying a satellite image of Udabno Regenerative Farm’s vineyard rows ripped following both curved and straight-line Keyline geometry. All of these rows were ripped using Fendt tractors which were fitted with FJDynamics RTK-GNSS guidance systems and used files we exported using Propagate’s Overyield software - Image Credit: Google Earth Pro (Maxar)
2024 - Sataple, Kakheti, Georgia - Satellite image of Udabno Regenerative Farm’s vineyard rows ripped following both curved and straight-line Keyline geometry. All of these rows were ripped using Fendt tractors which were fitted with FJDynamics RTK-GNSS guidance systems and used files we exported using Propagate’s Overyield software - Image Credit: Google Earth Pro (Maxar)
2024 - Sataple, Kakheti, Georgia - CAD vineyard rows overlaying a satellite image of Udabno Regenerative Farm’s vineyard rows ripped following both curved and straight-line Keyline geometry. All of these rows were ripped using Fendt tractors which were fitted with FJDynamics RTK-GNSS guidance systems and used files we exported using Propagate’s Overyield software - Image Credit: Google Earth Pro (Maxar)
2024 - Sataple, Kakheti, Georgia - Side-by-side views of the Udabno Regenerative Farm’s vineyard layouts in Google Earth Pro (L) and Propagate’s Overyield software (R). All of these rows were ripped using Fendt tractors which were fitted with FJDynamics RTK-GNSS guidance systems and used files we exported from the Overyield software - Image Credit: Google Earth Pro (Maxar) & Overyield