The impact of differences in soil texture within a vineyard on vine vigour, vine earliness and juice composition

Abstract

<p style="text-align: justify;"><strong>Aims</strong>: The young alluvial soils of the Wairau Plains, Marlborough, New Zealand, are considered to play an important role in determining this unique wine style. The aim of this experiment was to investigate, within a single vineyard, the impact of soil texture on vine vigour, vine earliness and fruit composition.</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><strong>Methods and results</strong>: Trunk circumference and pruning weights, were greater as the depth to gravel increased. Soil conductivity measurements, using an electromagnetic sensor (EM38) in conjunction with global positioning related well to vine trunk circumference. Where gravels came to the surface, soil temperatures measured at 30 cm depth were consistently higher by 1 to 2 °C (air temperature was unaffected) and vine phenology was more advanced, when compared to the deep silt soils. At harvest, fruit soluble solids and pH were higher and titratable acidity lower when vines grown on shallow soils, but soil type had no significant effect on fruit yield.</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><strong>Conclusions and significance of the study</strong>: Vine phenology during the growing season and fruit composition at harvest but not yield, reflect changes in soil texture over quite short distances within vineyards on the Wairau Plains. Within a vineyard, the higher the proportion of gravelly soils, the more advanced the vine phenology and the riper the fruit and wine style will exhibit riper (more tropical) and lower unripe (herbaceous) characteristics on a particular date.</p>

Virus interference on local scale viticulture: the case of Moll variety from Majorca (Spain)

“…It is plausible that some random factors also influenced the variance of vine parameters: (i) the microclimate in each vineyard (Deloire et al, 2005), (ii) the gradients in soil properties within the same vineyard (Trought et al, 2008), (iii) the goodness of farmers which can led to different effectiveness in vineyard management (White et al, 2007), (iv) the occurrence of diseases, pests and/or other virus infections etc. Thus, taking into account all these considerations, this study can be defined as a preliminary base to develop further and more advanced researches.…”

Geophysics and Wine in New Zealand

“…Terroir studies have also been conducted on a vineyard-block scale examining local variations in properties such as microclimate and soils (e.g. Trought et al, 2008). A summary of national-regional terroir in New Zealand is described in .…”

“…Grapevine trunk circumference measurements can be used as a proxy for variations in grapevine vigour on a site-specific level (e.g. Clingeleffer & Emmanuelli, 2006;AcevedoOpazo et al, 2008;Trought et al, 2008). These localised variations in even small vineyard blocks can in turn show differences in grape quality parameters (e.g.…”

“…These localised variations in even small vineyard blocks can in turn show differences in grape quality parameters (e.g. Cortell et al, 2005;Trought et al, 2008). If blocks are uniformly managed, changes in soil properties or local topography may contribute to variations in vine trunk circumference.…”

“…The EMI surveys are typically single-frequency and measure soil apparent electrical conductivity (ECa) values at one or two depths (e.g. Bramley, 2001;Trought et al, 2008), and this can provide very useful data, particularly where crops have a shallow rooting depth or shallow changes in soil properties are of interest. Grapevines have rooting depths that may exceed 6 m (Smart et al, 2006 and references therein), and therefore measuring soil ECa values at different depths may be beneficial.…”