Influence of Floor Management Technique on Grapevine Growth, Disease Pressure, and Juice and Wine Composition: A Review

Abstract

Vineyard floor management has multiple goals that encompass improving weed management and soil conservation, reducing soil resource availability to control vine vigor, and influencing desirable aspects in wine quality. This review addresses the effects of cultivation, weed control, cover crops, and mulch on vine growth and balance, disease pressure, yield, and juice and wine quality in many growing regions (Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Europe, and the western United States); offers recommendations for practical use; and highlights research needs. In the last decade, more literature has been published on mulching and cover cropping than on cultivation and herbicide use, suggesting stronger interest in cover cropping and mulching practices for vineyards. Cover crops have the potential to improve soil and vine health, can be adapted to many climates and soils, and may influence vine vigor by adjusting parameters such as the length of their growth period, coverage of the vineyard floor, and aggressiveness. Cover crops increased juice soluble solids, anthocyanins, and other phenolic components and decreased titratable acidity and pH. They were associated with red wines judged superior to those issued from non-cover-cropped vines. Use of organic mulches resulted in improved vine balance, soil water content, and friability, increased yields, and reduced pathogen and pest pressure. Plastic and fabric mulches remain impractical due to high installation cost. Application of newer techniques such as flame weeding or soil steaming is limited due to difficulty in targeting the appropriate stage of weed growth and limited susceptibility of some weed species to these techniques. Research needs include development of multiyear, multidisciplinary studies that use a mechanistic approach to link management practices to soil processes, grapevine responses, grape and wine composition, and sensory characteristics.

Improving water use efficiency of vineyards in semi-arid regions. A review

“…A recent review by Guerra and Steenwerth (2012) showed how the use of organic mulches increased yields and reduced pathogen and pest pressure. Furthermore, Nguyen et al (2013) showed how natural compost mulch increased grape yield with no adverse effects on grape quality.…”

Management of service crops for the provision of ecosystem services in vineyards: A review

“…shallow-rooted) could help reducing competition with grapevines (Delabays et al, 2006), and largescale commercial availability allows selecting species and cultivars suited to different environments (Pardini et al, 2002). Moreover, choosing sown species can be interesting to reach one or several specific services, such as long-term SOM improvement with grasses, N-fixation or rapid decomposition for N supply using legumes (Guerra and Steenwerth, 2012). Sowing density and spatial structure form levers which can be used to reduce competition with grapevines, or to favour biomass production (Santi et al, 2016).…”

“…The destruction date remains one of the main tactical management levers in vineyards with service crops: in the case of a lack of water early in the season, service crop destruction may stop the transpiration flux and preserve soil water reserves. A short analysis of 10 studies dealing with service crop management issues in a wide range of climates suggests that water availability (represented here as averaged annual rainfall) may be a relevant factor driving service crop destruction or mowing dates in vineyards (Figure 8, see also Guerra and Steenwerth (2012)). …”

Groundcover influence on physical and chemical soil properties, runoff and nutrient loss and grape yield and quality in semiarid Mediterranean vineyards

“…Moreover, along the trial we noticed herbivore problems with rabbits that showed much higher predilection for the Brachypodium distachyon GC. There are researches who have addressed water competition between the plants of GC and the vines in rainfed Mediterranean vineyards producing grape production decreases (Ruiz-Colmenero et al, 2011;Guerra and Steenwerth, 2012;Muscas et al, 2017). Nevertheless, these types of studies tend to ignore the costs of increasing SOC and erosion reductions on degraded soils.…”

“…Nevertheless, GC influences on grape yield is controversial as is affected by many factors (Ripoche et al, 2011 (Pou et al, 2011). Additionally increasing wine quality is often related to GC (Lopes et al, 2011;Guerra and Steenwerth, 2012;Lee and Steenwerth, 2013).…”