11/14/06 OVID Progresses

OVID Progresses. I'm Greg Martin with today's Fruit Grower Report. Alan Campbell's idea of sharing information on the internet is coming of age. The Oregon Vineyard Database or OVID is expanding and allowing wine grape growers in Oregon to target their growing operations. CAMPBELL: In 2001 I was just starting to teach at the Northwest Viticulture Center and starting going GIS mapping of vineyards and soils and we had an industry that sort of had its early growth stages and a lot of small owners without a lot of, a very different structure than the industry in California and Washington. A lot of small owners without strong background in Ag or viticulture but some experienced managers and it seemed like there was a lot of information that needed to be transferred from people who had experience to people who needed it. The project started out small. CAMPBELL: So I had this idea, let's create a database where you can capture management information, where you can have communication among vineyards and using the internet to see if we can use that as a tool to figure out what works well on some kinds of sites, what kinds of problems are being had on other types of sites and just to create a mechanism for capturing information and sharing experience. And also at the same time the purpose had to do with sharing nutrition management information. Tomorrow we'll look at the future of OVID. That's today's Fruit Grower Report. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.