Deep incorporation of organic amendments into soils of a 'Calardis Musqué' vineyard: effects on greenhouse gas emissions, vine vigor, and grape quality

Nele Schneider; Muhammad Islam; Ralf Wehrle; Stefan Pätzold; Nicolas Brüggemann; Reinhard Töpfer; Katja Herzog

doi:10.3389/fpls.2023.1253458

Deep incorporation of organic amendments into soils of a 'Calardis Musqué' vineyard: effects on greenhouse gas emissions, vine vigor, and grape quality

Front Plant Sci. 2023 Nov 16:14:1253458. doi: 10.3389/fpls.2023.1253458. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Nele Schneider¹, Muhammad Islam², Ralf Wehrle³, Stefan Pätzold³, Nicolas Brüggemann², Reinhard Töpfer¹, Katja Herzog¹

Affiliations

¹ Institute for Grapevine Breeding Geilweilerhof, Julius Kühn-Institute, Siebeldingen, Germany.
² Institute of Bio- and Geosciences, Agrosphere (IGB-3), Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH, Jülich, Germany.
³ Institute of Crop Science and Resource Conservation (INRES), Soil Science and Soil Ecology, University of Bonn, Bonn, Germany.

Abstract

Background: Traditional wine growing regions are increasingly endangered by climatic alterations. One promising approach to mitigate advancing climate change could be an increase of soil organic matter. Here, especially subsoils are of interest as they provide higher carbon storage potential than topsoils. In this context, vineyard subsoils could be particularly suitable since they are deeply cultivated once before planting and afterwards, left at rest for several decades due to the perennial nature of grapevines.

Methods: For this purpose, a biochar compost substrate and greenwaste compost were incorporated in up to 0.6 m depth before planting a new experimental vineyard with the fungus-resistant grapevine cultivar 'Calardis Musqué'. The influence of this deep incorporation on greenhouse gas emissions and grapevine performance was evaluated and compared to a non-amended control using sensor-based analyses.

Results: Increased CO₂ emissions and lower N₂O emissions were found for the incorporation treatments compared to the control, but these differences were not statistically significant due to high spatial variability. Only few plant traits like chlorophyll content or berry cuticle characteristics were significantly affected in some of the experimental years. Over the course of the study, annual climatic conditions had a much stronger influence on plant vigor and grape quality than the incorporated organic amendments.

Discussion: In summary, organic soil amendments and their deep incorporation did not have any significant effect on greenhouse gas emissions and no measurable or only negligible effect on grapevine vigor, and grape quality parameters. Thus, according to our study the deposition of organic amendments in vineyard subsoils seems to be an option for viticulture to contribute to carbon storage in soils in order to mitigate climate change.

Keywords: Vitis vinifera; biochar compost substrate; climate change; grapevine; greenhouse gas emissions; greenwaste compost; plant phenotyping.

Grants and funding

We gratefully acknowledge the financial support of the Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture (Bundesministerium für Ernährung und Landwirtschaft (BMEL), Bonn, Germany) and the German Federal Office of Agriculture and Food (Bundesanstalt für Landwirtschaft und Ernährung (BLE), Bonn, Germany) in the framework of the project VitiSoil (grant numbers: 281B302216, 281B302116, 281B302016).