September brought the biggest addition of the year to VineyardElf: satellite imagery of your own blocks. Alongside it came vessel tracking with QR codes, a guided tour for new accounts and the first how-to videos in the help centre.
Satellite data (NDVI)
The new Satellite (NDVI) screen shows the condition of every parcel from Sentinel-2 imagery, refreshed every few days and free of charge - all you need is a free Copernicus account.
- A trend, not a single number - the chart shows how each block changes and which one is drifting away from the rest.
- NDVI map laid over your block boundaries, with a true-colour base layer and an opacity slider.
- Past seasons up to three years back, and a season vs season comparison on a shared day-of-season axis.
- Vigour zones - the block split into three parts by condition, exportable to GeoJSON and KML.
- Ranking before a heat wave - blocks ordered by the drop in moisture when the forecast crosses your threshold.
- Elf tells you when not to trust it: under clouds, on blocks below half a hectare and outside the growing season the worded ratings disappear and only the figures remain, with an explanation.
The growing-season window is worked out from the latitude of your blocks, so vineyards in the southern hemisphere get their own season calendar.
Details: Satellite data (NDVI)
Vessels and QR codes
- Vessel register - tanks, barrels and vats, with occupancy history and transfers.
- Printable QR labels for your vessels.
- Scan with a phone - the code opens the batch card of whatever is currently in that vessel.
International profile
An account can run in the international profile: English interface, your own units (Baumé, Brix, °C) and a date format that follows the account language, with country-specific regulatory modules switched off.
Guided tour and videos
New accounts are welcomed by a guided tour through the first steps. The help centre also gained its first how-to videos - short, practical recordings made in the real application, so far covering the satellite screen and batch cards. More are being added.