Lucie Morton is conducting a study for the Virginia Wine Board on the role of clay mineralogy on the uptake of potassium by wine grapes. If VVA members would like to participate and add baseline survey information to the study, they can provide data to this email address: vitipoint@gmail.com. Here’s what they’re looking for:
1. Digital copies of soil reports from their vineyard blocks. They can be from multiple years and can be in spread sheet form. Please provide information on how the sampling was done, and at what soil depths.
2. Digital copies of tissue analyses from those vineyard blocks. They can be from multiple years and can be in spread sheet form. Please specify whether they are from petioles or leaves. (Note: bloom is a standard time for petiole sampling.) You should provide the time of sampling and the age of the vines. Also, specify the cultivar and rootstock varieties.
3. Recommendations that were made about soil amendments.
4. Information about actions that were taken with regard to soil amendments.
The information collected for this study is not being examined for anything other than generic information and basic trends. It will be logged into the study database by geographic location with a code and not by name of business.
Please note, this is a research project that will ultimately lead to improvements in viticultural practices in Virginia, but it is not intended to provide immediate information to growers. There will be no reply to growers beyond an acknowledgement that the information has been received. There will be no follow-up contact or opinions from the study team including Lucie. She and her team are simply amassing as much raw data about linkages between soil analyses and tissue analyses in as many Virginia vineyards as possible.