Articles
VINEYARDS IN THE YEAR 2000: RESOURCE PRESSURES
Rootstocks will help overcome defects of marginal soils due to excess salt, alkali, Cu or B, or to soil-borne pests and diseases.
The widely used practice of covering vines in winter as a protection against cold injury could become a limitation unless alternatives are found.
Expansion into colder, hotter, wetter or more humid areas will occur as new genomes become available.
Areas and methods for early- and late- table grapes will increase.
The risks to renowned areas from pollution and urbanization are ever-increasing, as are those from chemicals in vineyards adjacent to industry or some field crops.
The development of safe protectant chemicals is becoming very expensive, and biological aids are urgent.
Clearly, fossil fuel, phosphate and suchlike are becoming limiting and will necessitate alterations to growing methods.
The problem of labour supply will be felt in those parts of viticulture which resist effective mechanization; table grapes may be one.
Many problems will call for genetic answers; active search programmes for grape species and varieties and the maintenance of this material in national repositories are urgently required to counter erosion of the gene pool by man’s rapid modification of the natural environment.