Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
The first climate-induced impacts will affect wine styles, which can be manipu-
lated in the winery to some extent. Viticultural practice can also be modified to
buffer climate changes, including mulching to maintain soil moisture, introducing
water use efficiencies by regular monitoring of soil water balance and irrigating ac-
cordingly, modifying trellising for better airflow. Eventually some threshold will be
reached whereby it becomes too difficult to maintain a consistent product. At this
point a grower may opt to change varieties to ones that are better adapted to hotter
conditions. This would require a change in marketing strategy as well. The next
threshold would be a wholesale change of location of the vineyard to a cooler site.
Summary of Potential Adaptation Options to Climate Change
(With Increasing Level of Adaptation)
• Canopy management to manipulate shading or exposure
• Cover crops, mulches or grassy swards to reduce soil and canopy temperature
and improve soil structure
• Increase soil organic matter (nutrient buffering, soil water retention)
• Sprays to reduce heat stress
• Grafting new more resilient varieties or replacing with new varieties or wine
styles
• Modified row orientation and spacing
• New vineyard establishment in (cooler) areas
Future Opportunities in Vineyard Management
The most important opportunities in vineyard management relate to those attempt-
ing to reduce production costs, in particular using vineyard mechanisation. Indeed,
there is now an increased reliance on mechanisation in countries where the cost of
labour is high. Areas of current adoption and/or consideration for mechanisation
include pre pruning, pruning, cane removal, de suckering, leaf removal, shoot po-
sitioning, wire lifting, netting, spraying, harvesting and weed control. It is possible
to conceive that most operations in vineyard can be carried out using mechanical
tools or at least, pre operation can be mechanised and only finished by hand. The
design of “smart” mechanical tools is likely to benefit from rapid advances in robot-
ics. Tools can now see, feel and make rapid decision, as evidenced in the Citrus and
Apple industries. Some challenges still exist when handling complex and divided
canopies as well as when carrying out delicate operations.
Another important opportunity for vineyard managers will be the capacity to car-
ry out precision viticulture. This technology already allows for the selective man-
agement of vineyards (a common occurrence). It is of particular interest in variable
vineyards in order to produce fruit of consistent quality. Irrigated vineyards were
seldom designed such that irrigation blocks followed soil variability, resulting in
