Half-a-million dollars has been granted to Fowles Wine to engineer a navigation helper for the bats that reside in its vineyards.

When Fowles Wine owner and director Matt Fowles last spoke to Country News, he had an idea he dubbed the BatNav.

Now, he’s received $500,000 to engineer it.

He said the winery’s priorities were all about the environment we live in.

“The sort of guiding principle at our place is to farm in nature’s image,” Mr Fowles said.

After having an intensive study done on the farm, it was found that 172 species of fauna visit the Strathbogie Hills vineyards.

“It was the longest study of its kind, certainly in Australia, and perhaps the world, in relation to vineyards and micro-bats,” Mr Fowles said.

“Then the question becomes what do you do with the knowledge?”

He knew he had micro-bats who were helping with pests, and he knew he wanted to help them do that.

He had two main options, create an artificial habitat for the nighttime flying friends.

“But for me, it’s quite a strong intervention, because you're physically building structures,” Mr Fowles said.

Or, you can help the bats more indirectly.

“Bats fly by echolocation, by sound and what they learned is when they fly over a crop, there isn't stuff to bounce sound off,” he said.

“So when they fly into a forest, they've got trees and vines and whatever else, just the chaotic nature of forest, but in a monoculture of a single species, it’s very uniform.

“So when they fly over the top for about 50 metres, and then they feel vulnerable because they know there is no sort of shelter around them, and they'll fly back to their roost.”

So Mr Fowles thought, how can he help them go further into the crop so they can continue to feed on pests?

“That’s essentially the challenge we’re seeking to meet,” he said.

“What we’re looking at is designing some vertical structures in the vineyard that allow the bats to effectively echo locate through the blocks so they can continue to feed.”

The funding came from the Coles Nurture Fund, which has given $3.5 million to 13 innovative farming projects in the current round of funding.

“We put our hat in the ring and the ideas together with the real-world opportunity and that was enough for them to award us the funding,” Mr Fowles said.

They aren’t sitting around, launching straight into a meeting in early July.

University researchers, agronomists, the winemaking team, industrial designers and sound experts will come together to make the project a reality.

“[The researchers] will be involved to give us guidance on bat behaviour, we may get an agronomist involved as well to see what other crops this might apply to,” he said.

“Then we have the project team inside Fowles, so everyone in the field basically ... and then, we will canvass the whole of Australia for the best industrial designers that we can find, and I expect acoustic engineers as well to help us develop the prototypes.”

To learn more about Fowles Wine or for more details on the vineyard’s biodiversity, head to fowleswine.com

To check out the rest of the Coles Nurture Fund recipients, head to tinyurl.com/5dd3fvmv

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Sunday, 27th July 2025

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