Research funding helps solve grape growing challen

Research funding helps solve grape growing challenges

Mealybugs, sour rot, frosts and humidity are problems for grape growers that may be closer to solutions thanks to funding from the 2009 Skeltons Viticulture Development Grant.

Over $12,000 has been provided this year by Grant sponsors Skeltons, Plant & Food Research, Ballance Agri-Nutrients and Bayer CropScience New Zealand. The recipients are a variety of scientists, consultants, inventors and vineyard managers.

“We’re now into our sixth year and the grant has become a credible funding source for the viticulture industry’s bright ideas,” says Skeltons General Manager, Ian Gold. “We’ve had a number of last year’s successful applicants applying to continue and expand their research, and we see huge benefits in helping fledgling ideas grow and take off.”

This year the grant was expanded from Hawke’s Bay and offered to industry participants in Wairarapa and Gisborne as a result of Skeltons extending its technical advisory service into those areas as a result of becoming part of Farmlands.

One of the successful applicants is Gisborne consultancy Lewis Wright Valuation and Consultancy Ltd with a proposal to research the use of gibberellic acid for sour rot control with a view to improving wine quality, and grower and winery returns.

Current vineyard management practices appear ineffective in controlling splitting and sour rots and growers must cut sour rot out prior to harvest. Lewis Wright estimates th loss to grower income based on 2008 returns is $4.2M, with an additional $1M in labour costs for bunch removal.

This research project will examine the effect of different application rates and timings of gibberellic acid in trials on commercial pinot gris vineyards in Gisborne and Hawke’s Bay.

Another new research proposal this year challenges the commonly held belief that humidity is higher under vines in the space above plant cover than where there is bare soil. Vineyard mangers Rob Beard and Mark Dixon contest this and will be running trials to record specific in-field measurements of temperature and humidity in both scenarios. Monitoring will take place throughout the growing season, from bud-break to harvest.

Sensor recorders will be placed at ground level and bunch line to register temperature and humidity. Each test area will have rows with undervine cultivation of companion plants and rows of conventional weed sprayed bare strips.

“Being able to understand a changing climate is integral to sustaining and strengthening the wine industry,” says the duo. “The possibility of modifying the micro-climate in the canopy and bunch line in particular has the potential to improve disease management, vine stress and overall harvested grape / wine quality,” says Mark Dixon of Keltern Vineyard, Maraekakaho.

“It would also have the potential to reduce the amount of herbicide applied which has other positive sustainability implications,” says Rob Beard of Stirling Vineyard, Meeanee.

The two projects to receive funding for the second year are those to extend research into mealybug control, and to develop a new frost protection system.

David Reid, a PhD student with Lincoln University is gaining a solid reputation for his work to remove mealybug host-plant species from vineyard ground cover with his 2008 work showing this approach has had significantly positive results. The 2009 focus will be to trial and evaluate indigenous and exotic grass species for suitability as sustainable replacement cover crop species.

“Removing mealybug host-plant species can substantially reduce the mealybug population but for this approach to be sustainable, we need to find non-host plants species to replace them,” explains Mr Reid.

The trials to be conducted in CJ Pask vineyards will identify appropriate species and evaluate their performance in the vineyard with emphasis given to establishment, growth characteristics, ease of maintenance, mealybug host-plant suppression, and mealybug numbers in the trial blocks.

In the fourth project, inventors Eduard Rust and Torbjorn Gustavvson of MinusSix Ltd will be aiming to stop frosts of -6 C from creating havoc with grape crops. Work in 2008 has resulted in patented technology that uses light bulbs as a heating source to deliver warm air from a series of pipes underneath vines. To date two prototypes have been designed, built and tested with results documented. Over the coming year, further field trials will be completed with 80 improved units tested with the focus on power distribution and consumption.

“If this system proves successful, it will remove the necessity for water use and therefore alleviate the pressure on growers from councils to restrict water rakes and apply for water consents,” says Eduard Rust. “It will also be more efficient that using frost fans or helicopters.

“We are also expecting to prove that the system is reliable from one season the next, and are easy to check and maintain.”

ENDS

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