Location: Horticultural Crops Production and Genetic Improvement Research Unit
Project Number: 2072-30500-001-000-D
Project Type: In-House Appropriated
Start Date: Jan 8, 2025
End Date: Jan 7, 2030
Objective:
This project’s long-term goals are to refine agricultural management practices that growers use to improve fruit and fruit product quality, and to sustain the economic competitiveness of US agriculture.
Objective 1: Adapt and build strategies for vineyard management that growers can use to improve vineyard resilience and grape quality, including guidance for optimizing vineyard soil health in arid climates regimes. Sub-objective 1.A: Evaluate how soil health building practices facilitate resilience to perturbation during vineyard establishment and quantify the effects of soil health building practices on vineyard establishment success. Sub-objective 1.B: Evaluate the influence of soil health building practices on mature vine vigor, grape and wine quality.
Objective 2: Evaluate analytical methods for quality constituent determination of indicator compounds in fruit, fruit products, and wines to support best agricultural practices that small fruit growers can utilize to increase fruit quality. Sub-objective 2.A: Define sample preparation and analytical methods linked to fruit, and their product quality to evaluate and optimize these methods where insufficient data exists. Sub-objective 2.B: Evaluate developed quality component measurements on small fruits and their products, and elucidate relationships between agricultural practices and the quality chemical components.
Approach:
Project objectives will be accomplished by integrating research across three disciplines: soil science, crop physiology, and food chemistry. The effects of soil health building practices on vineyard establishment will be quantified by a comprehensive soil health analysis study in a newly established research vineyard in Prosser, WA. This vineyard has five different management treatments in a randomized complete block design with Vitis vinifera scions ‘Cabernet Sauvignon’ and ‘Chardonnay’ grafted to 1103P rootstock, alternating every three rows. Treatments include: 1) conventional fertilization and herbicide practices, 2) conventional fertilization practices but with mowing used for weed control rather than herbicide, 3) in-vine row leguminous cover crop with conventional fertilization practices and mowing for weed control, 4) compost based fertilization with mowing for weed control, and 5) in-vine row leguminous cover crop with compost based fertilization with mowing for weed control. We will conduct comprehensive soil sampling analysis evaluating soil health indicators from four depths fractions from each replicated treatment block by cultivar from both the undervine and tractor row areas of the vineyard. This soil health indicator analysis will be conducted in conjunction with tracking plant growth performance, yield, and quantifying fruit, juice, and wine quality for each treatment by cultivar replicate. An additional growing season will be added, if young grapevines do not produce sufficient crop. A systematic approach, with targeted analyses of fruit quality compounds, will be utilized to predict the magnitude that environmental factors and cultural practices impart to fruit quality. This strategy will allow us to improve and define analytical methods for plant metabolite analyses that advance our comprehension of the interactions between vineyard management, vineyard microbiome, vine virus status, and cultivar/genotype selections have upon fruit development, fruit quality components, and crop physiology. An additional growing season will be employed, if necessary, to account for interruptions during the experimental treatment or sampling schedules.