11/15/06 The Future of OVID

The future of OVID. I'm Greg Martin with today's Fruit Grower Report. Being able to share information online has been a boon to many industries including the Oregon Viticulture industry. With the advent of the Oregon Vineyard Database, wine producers can share information regarding soil types, successful varieties and more. Alan Campbell original idea for OVID took a few years to build and is now sharing a great deal of information. While primarily for Oregon wine producers, growers in California and Washington are finding the information helpful. CAMPBELL: Part of OVID was to&our goal was to improve that conversation so wine growers can look at what their doing, what others are doing and what impact that has on yield and cost and quality. And winemakers and the industry has a chance to look across the landscape and see what different practices cost, what their impact is on the price of fruit and the quality of fruit and so that you don't waste any money doing things that aren't yielding any economic benefit. And to create this mechanism where there's more substantial conversation about what's done, what it costs, what it's impact is and whether we should expand that or contract it across the landscape as a practice. Recently with funds from a grant partnership between USDA Risk Management Agency and the Washington Wine Industry Foundation provided funding for OVID to build additional functions allowing grape growers to assess OVID as a potential template for the entire Northwest. That's today's Fruit Grower Report. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.