Eleonora Nistor

SUSTAINABILITY OF GRAPEVINE PRODUCTION THROUGH MORE EFFICIENT SYSTEMS OF SOIL MAINTENANCE AND AGRO-BIOLOGICAL INDICATORS

Tillage practices in viticulture are very important, with major effects on quantitative and qualitative production, on vines phenology and stages of growth. In this study the aim was to identify the most appropriate vineyard floor management, located on flat land or mild slopes, with medium or high soils fertility. The research was carried out during 2011–2013 in the vineyard of the BUASVM Didactic Station from Timisoara and focusing exclusively on several variants of soil maintenance in order to replace the need for manual labor. Leaf area was estimated by concentric circles method and sugar concentration was evaluated by refractometry. Total acidity in must and wine was determined by titration. Grape yield was estimated by bunches counting and weighing, for each variety and productive potential (kg ha -1 ) was appreciated by multiplying the average yield per vine with the number of vines per hectare. Statistical analysis was performed using GraphPad Prism 6. Performance of Burgundy variety for superior red wines group and Silvania table grape variety – with a medium ripening, were analyzed in the experiment. For both Burgundy and Silvania varieties the sixth variant (V6–bare soil by tillage middles row (tractor and rotary hoe)/rotary hoe undervine (tractor and adjustable offset rotary tiller) registered the highest grape yield during the research. The lowest grape yield fulfils to the seventh variant of vineyard floor management. Burgundy variety had the average must sugar content of 195 ± 4.27 g l -1 and that of the leaf area of 7.09 ± 0.58 m 2 while in Silvania variety the average of grape must acidity was 4.66 ± 0.35 g l -1 H 2 SO 4 and the leaf area of 7.42 ± 0.51 m 2 /vine. Between must sugar content and leaf area, in Burgundy and Silvania variety has been established a significant positive linear correlation (r = 0.94 ***) and (r = 0.88 **; p <0.001) respectively, variables being virtually indistinguishable. Keywords: grapevine, leaf area, soil, sugars, sustainability, variety, wine. Article DOI: http://doi.org/10.15544/RD.2015.022