Tailor-made Argentina: In the News

Argentineans winemakers can control the weather: 30-06-2008

Adventure travellers to Argentina will surely have sampled the country's stunning array of fine wines without ever sparing a thought to the battle that has taken place to produce it.

The battle is not with man but with mother nature, as hail storms in the Mendoza area have long threatened to devastate grape crops.

Since 1974, the region has relied on the anti-hail movement to change the weather by injecting chemicals into the clouds to reduce the size and frequency of hail.

The "cloud seeding" is funded by the Mendoza province government and uses silver iodide to condense moisture in the cloud into water droplets, increasing rain but reducing hail.

Agriculture and Climate Contingency Control Group director Eduardo Martín said that the measures have made a real difference since coming into play.

"Mendoza lost ten per cent of its annual cultivation each year as a result of hailstorms. Now it only loses three to five percent maximum."

Mendoza lies to the east of the Andes mountains close to the Chilean border and produces 70 per cent of Argentinean wine.

Argentina is the fifth largest wine producer in the world.