Impact of a Bushfire on the Vegetative and Reproductive Growth of Grapevines
Autor: alexzhang • August 28, 2015 • Case Study • 456 Words (2 Pages) • 959 Views
Impact of a Bushfire on the Vegetative and Reproductive Growth of Grapevines
Bushfire, which produces fire, smoke and heat, may bring damages and changes to vine pruning, growth, berries ripening and sensory characteristics of wines (Kennison et al. 2009). This report will analyse the raw data in the two growing seasons 2008/09 and 2009/10, indicate impacts of the bushfire on the growth and yield, and describe the recovery of scorched vines. In this case, average numbers of shoots and bunches and weight of crop yield and pruning are presented in the figure 1.
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Figure1. Measurements for control & scorched Pinot Noir grapevines taken during the 2008/09 and 2009/10 growing seasons
The impacts of the bushfire on the growth and yield of vines are significant by comparing the control vines with scorched vines in the growing season 2008/09. The number of shoots has reduced rapidly. There are 24 (averaged) shoots of scorched vines while 72 (averaged) shoots of control vines. The data difference of bunches is huge. Control vines have got 79 (averaged) and scorched vines have got 7 (averaged). In aspect of yield, the weight of vines production has decreased from 7.91kg (averaged) to 0.21kg (averaged) and the weight of pruning has decreased from 1.54kg (averaged) to 0.57kg (averaged).
There is a considerable recovery of scorched vines in consideration of these factors of the scorched vine proportion compared to control vines. As shown in Table 1, bunches, crop yield and pruning share nearly the same rate of recovery which are around 55-56%. The change of shoots recovery may be not as aggressive as other factors. However, the shoots have recovered up to 60% comparing the control vines.
Table1. Changes of scorched vines recovery compared with control grapevines during the 2008/09 and 2009/10 growing seasons
Item & Season | scorched/ control(AVG) | Result | Changes |
Shoots 2008/09 | 24/72 | 33.33% | 29.77% |
Shoots 2009/10 | 53/84 | 63.10% | |
Bunches 2008/09 | 7/79 | 9.86% | 57.45% |
Bunches 2009/10 | 70/104 | 67.31% | |
Crop Yield 2008/09 | 0.21/7.91 | 2.65% | 55.19% |
Crop Yield 2009/10 | 8.37/14.47 | 57.84% | |
Pruning 2008/09 | 0.57/1.54 | 37.01% | 55.23% |
Pruning 2009/10 | 1.07/1.16 | 92.24% |
In conclusion, bushfire has affections on the both growth and yield of Pinot Noir vines in this case but there remain hopes for the scorched vines to recover in a certain time. Considering the size of the samples is not big enough, more data of different grape varieties and vineyards may need to be collected and analysed to confirm the impact of a bushfire on the vegetative and reproductive growth of grapevines.
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