Some wine grape growers turning to dry farming methods
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on May 15, 2008 at 6:33 amFrom the Associated Press:
Vineyard manager Steve Thomas grasps the trunk of a zinfandel vine, a redwood of the vineyard, gnarled with age and planted in the days when irrigation meant a barrel of water on a horse-drawn cart. The work horses and carts are long gone. But these old zin vines at Kunde Estate in Sonoma County still get their water the old fashioned way, from rain, dew and a deep root system.
They call it “dry farming,” which is what agriculture used to be before plastic hoses hooked up to a water supply made deserts bloom. A few vintners are returning to it. They are driven by concerns over dwindling water supplies, the belief it produces more intensely flavored fruit, and, in Kunde’s case, by a desire to return to old traditions. “What you find out is grape vines are incredibly adaptable,” said Thomas.
At the 600-acre Kunde Estate, about 100 acres are dry-farmed. The rest are grown conventionally.
Wine grapes are grown without artificial irrigation in parts of the world such as Spain and France, where some regions have laws forbidding use of irrigation, said Robert Wample, chair of the viticulture and enology at California State University, Fresno.
Dry farming in California is unusual, although there is a trend toward using less water. “We’re learning to be much more precise early in the growing season so we can control the vegetative growth, minimize the total water consumption and then follow that with good management practices,” he said.
Read the rest of this article from the Associated Press by clicking here.
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