Pianello Val Tidone (Piacenza) - The future of agricultural technology speaks Italian. A small company from the province of Piacenza, Spezia srl, is the only Italian company to be among the nominees for the SITEVI World Award 2025. This is the world's highest award for innovation in the winegrowing industry, which is presented at the SITEVI international trade fair in Montpellier (France).
The nominated project is called InNoVaR and is an intelligent system that transforms conventional vineyard sprayers (atomizzatori) into sustainable precision instruments. The suspense remains until the very end: similar to the Oscars, the winner will only be announced on the evening of November 25 during the trade fair's gala dinner.
From constant flow to volumetric precision
The heart of InNoVaR is a retrofit kit that was developed in collaboration with the Agricultural Engineering research group at the University of Turin (DiSAFA). The big advantage: the kit can be installed on most existing sprayers. Farmers therefore do not have to purchase expensive new equipment or scrap efficient machines.
The technology converts the constant spray flow into a variable one. Sensors mounted on the tractor analyze the volume and density of the vegetation in real time. The system then automatically adjusts the delivery of the spray mixture - nozzle by nozzle. Where there are no leaves, nothing is sprayed. Where there is a lot of foliage, the dose is increased proportionally. This enables true volumetric, i.e. foliage wall proportional, application for the first time.
Massive savings and environmental protection
The advantages of the system are enormous and are both economical and ecological. As the nozzles work at a constant pressure, an ideal droplet size for wetting is guaranteed. The proven results show a drastic increase in sustainability: the consumption of pesticides has been reduced by up to 73 %. At the same time, water consumption is drastically reduced, treatment times are shortened due to fewer refill stops and the efficiency of deposition on the leaf is doubled. On average, 50 % fewer agrochemicals are released into the environment.
„The EU 2030 Agenda calls for a 50 % reduction in crop protection products, but until now there have been few practical solutions. InNoVaR is a concrete step towards this,“ explains Giancarlo Spezia, founder of Tecnovict (part of Spezia srl). Even French research, which does not yet have this technology, has already expressed interest in cooperation. The International Organization of Vine and Wine (OIV) has also already requested technical details on this pioneering technology „Made in Italy“.
