Vineyard Nutrition

Just as in humans, nutritional balance within the vine is essential to consistent fruit quality and quantity. How do you balance nutrition in the vineyard? While the majority of nutritional management can be dealt with prior to planting, such as adjusting soil pH and organic matter, vineyard soil management is a continual process and requires monitoring to ensure healthy, productive vines. It’s better to maintain proper soil health practices than to try to correct problems when leaf symptoms are visible. How can you keep an eye on vineyard nutrition? Soil and petiole testing will help you monitor nutrients available in the soil and in the plants. We recommend doing BOTH soil and petiole testing to verify that what you have available in the soil is actually getting into the vines. If a petiole test result indicates a deficiency, but soil test results indicate adequate levels of a nutrient, an alternative problem, such as improper soil pH or inadequate water drainage, could be the culprit. 

Soil and tissue recommendations are based off of viticulture research and published in Wine Grape Production Guide for Eastern North America. Find it here.