Fruitful alliance.

Byline: Sherri Buri McDonald The Register-Guard

From its genesis in the 1960s and 1970s, the Oregon wine industry has been composed of many small, family-owned vineyards and wineries.

"Grapes in Oregon emerged not from traditional farmers looking for new crops to grow, but from a dedicated group of passionate folks who came from other walks of life," said Kevin Chambers, a 26-year industry veteran and owner of OVS, an agricultural supply company with stores in Aurora and McMinnville.

Oregon's early vintners had to learn as they went along, and they swapped information with one another to get their fledgling operations up and running, he said.

"It really became a matter of share or die," Chambers said.

That spirit of collaboration is still alive and well in the creation of OVID, the Oregon Vineyard Database, Chambers said.

After four years of development, the database will be unveiled on Feb. 28 in Eugene at the Oregon Wine Symposium, which will be held at the Hilton from Feb. 27 to March 1.

The interactive database enables vineyard managers to map out their agricultural land, log soil and water management practices, pesticide applications and other records.

Vineyard owners, managers and winemakers all can consult the database to track the growing season and use the data to make more informed decisions, Chambers said.

Users also may choose to share information about their vineyards or practices with colleagues at similar sites, to exchange ideas on how to cut costs and increase the quality and value of the fruit.

Earl Jones, an OVID member and co-owner, with his wife Hilda, of Abacela Vineyards near Roseburg, said he looks forward to using that feature.

"When you're planting a garden or growing any kind of a crop, you're doing that pretty much alone," he said. "One of the things you'd like to do is talk to someone who is doing the same thing somewhere else, and see if you're doing all the right things."

OVID is the modern-day equivalent of the country store where farmers could drop in and share tips and stories by the pot-bellied stove, Jones said.

"Here, we can share it on the computer," he said, "with our neighbors, whether that neighbor is in Eastern Oregon, the Willamette Valley or the Rogue Valley."

Growers and winemakers are generally more open with each other in Oregon than in other markets, Chambers said. But if a database user wants to keep sensitive information private, that information can be coded, and safeguards can be built into the database to limit access to the data, he said.

The system was designed, however, to facilitate the sharing of information.

Alan Campbell, a plant biologist and director of OVID, played a central role in launching the project. When Campbell started teaching five years ago at the Northwest Viticulture Center at Chemeketa Community College in Salem, he realized that growers were experienced at dealing with challenges at their vineyards, but they didn't have an easy way to share those lessons with other growers.

In 2002, Campbell pitched the idea for a database to the Oregon Wine Board, a semi-independent state agency, which has committed $42,000 (collected from state grape taxes) to the project.

Developing the database has cost more than $136,000, Campbell estimated.

The USDA gave OVID a $44,300 regional grant, administered by the Washington Wine Industry.

There is interest in turning the database into a regional system. Plans are in the works to add vineyards and growers in Washington and Idaho, Chambers said.

Volunteers, such as Campbell and others, have donated programming and other expertise worth at least $50,000, Chambers said.

So far, about 145 Oregon vineyards have pledged membership.

To participate in the first year, they'll pay a $200 enrollment fee, plus an annual fee of $200. After the first year, users pay just the $200 annual fee, Campbell said.

Matt Compton, vineyard manager at Benton-Lane Winery in Monroe, said the system provides an affordable and easy way to transition from paper files to the digital age.

Other commercial vineyard management software is on the market, but it's expensive, Compton said.

"This database will be a nice system that I can set up each block (of the vineyard), log the year planted and all the physicological events that happen," he said.

And when the grapes are made into wine, he said he'll be able to tell which vineyard blocks produced the grapes that went into specific wines.

"It's really a novel idea," Chambers said. "If we can make this fly - and we're getting ever so close to going live - it will be the first such effort globally of a growing community sharing data about soils, soil amendments and management techniques that will allow us to make comparisons in real-time."

CAPTION(S):

Tim Wilson, the winemaker at Benton-Lane Winery in Monroe, is looking forward to using OVID. Matt Compton, vineyard manager, Tim Wilson, winemaker, and Steve Girard, owner of Benton-Lane Winery in Monroe, expect to use the system to track vineyard agricultural practices.