“We can spray a couple of hectares an hour, so for the average Canberra region vineyard I can be finished in time to enjoy a glass of their wine for lunch.” Wine columnist RICHARD CALVER meets Michael MacWilliam, who is changing the way work’s done in vineyards. 

It’s hard to stay with the proposition that technology should be our servant not our master.

Creeping into everyday life is the insistence of following the technology. One of my pet hates is places that say credit or debit card only for payment and then make you pay the related surcharge.

Technology can also be frightening: look at the way drones have changed the face of war. Ukraine was able to take out a large proportion of Russian bomber aircraft with the use of drones.

But drones can be put to good use; they can replace machinery that is much less efficient and can save costs especially in the vineyard.

I recently met Michael MacWilliam (wrong spelling for the wine connection) who has started a business using drones for spraying and for targeted fertilising of grapevines. This saves hours on a tractor, an especially fraught process on steep country. 

“Our new drone business, TechShift Aerial Solutions, is ready to innovate on vineyard management in the Canberra region,” Michael tells me. 

State-of-the-art drones have been used for years in high-volume grape and orchard farms around the world. Now we’re offering these services to the high-quality vineyards in the capital region. 

“These vineyards are sensitive to the cost of inputs like labour and fungicides. These farms need every tool available to push costs down so they can focus on getting their great quality wine on to shelves.

“We’re helping them apply inputs with pinpoint accuracy, keeping labour, fertiliser and chemical costs down. By keeping chemical inputs down, we’re also helping maintain healthier surrounding ecosystems. 

He said that another benefit was fewer tractor passes – even the small tractors vineyards used contributed to soil compaction, crushing roots and making it harder for their vines to thrive.

“Flying overhead means no tractors trundling down vine rows, no concerns with wet ground and equipment getting bogged. Using drones provides an easy, efficient solution,” he said. 

“We’re currently flying the best spraying drone available on the Australian market. It’s got an incredible ability to follow terrain, so it doesn’t matter how steep or uneven a vineyard is, it just tracks along at a consistent height above a vine row, with consistent coverage.

“We can spray a couple of hectares an hour, so for the average Canberra region vineyard I can be finished in time to enjoy a glass of their wine for lunch.” 

Adding in imagery services also gave vineyards an edge, he said. “We can give early indications of leaf and vine stress, before the human eye can see it.

“Healthy leaves reflect invisible light differently from unhealthy leaves, which means we can tell when vines start to draw nutrients out of the leaf and back into the trunk and roots. They do this as a response to stress, protecting the plant and dropping leaves.

“So we can spray the 10-20 per cent of a crop that really needs treatment. It’s a powerful tool when you’re dealing with vineyards trying to get the best value off every vine.

“We’re proud to be from the Canberra region and collaborate with local businesses; from the specialty engineering firm that develops our custom fertiliser spreader in a garage in Bungendore, to the manufacturer of our hard cases in Mitchell, even the dealer from whom I bought my drones. 

“My wine industry consultant lives across the road from me. At the end of the day, we prefer dealing with locals because we know what we’re going to get.”

Meanwhile, getting my mate’s drone stuck in a tree isn’t the worst thing that happened to me today. But it’s definitely up there.