Research heats up in cool Tasmania

With its maritime climate, long growing and ripening seasons, and mild sunny autumns, Tasmania seems ideally suited to cool climate viticulture. Yet for all that, the island's true wine-growing potential is still to be fully realised. Its 220 or so vineyards are for the most part small, family-run affairs, totalling less than 1,300ha.

Sure, Tasmania boasts a handful of medium-sized players like Tamar Ridge, Kreglinger, and the Hardy Wine Company. They produce some of the country's best sparkling, Chardonnay and Pinot Noir wines.  But the industry's modest levels of private and company investment have nevertheless constrained it to an embryonic phase of development.

It's hardly surprising then that one of the best pieces of news the State has had over recent years has been a $1m investment in viticultural research.

The core initiative is a program of research projects being undertaken by University of Tasmania research fellows Dr Kathy Evans and Dr Joanna Heazlewood, lecturer in horticulture Dr Steve Wilson, and a small, dedicated team of Ph.D. and honours students. Their work results from a joint partnership between the Grape and Wine Research and Development Corporation (GWRDC) and the Tasmanian Institute of Agricultural Research (TIAR).

The GWRDC is a nationally funded statutory authority, set up in July 1991 to improve the efficiency of production, processing, storage, transport and marketing of grapes and wine.

For its part, the Tasmanian Institute of Agricultural Research (TIAR) represents a joint venture between the Tasmanian Department of Primary Industries, Water and Environment (DPIWE) and the University of Tasmania.

The Institute was established in 1996 to focus agricultural research in the State, and to ensure that such programs meet the needs and priorities of Tasmania's agricultural industries. Today, it boasts a research and support staff bordering on 200, with programs of scientific investigation spanning industries as diverse as the vegetable and dairy industries, perennial horticulture, food safety, forestry, and soil science.

Each research partner contributes roughly half of the program's budget, while leadership and logistical support is provided by TIAR. TIAR funding is sourced from the Tasmanian Government, the University, and a mix of various agricultural research and development organisations and industry bodies.

Recently added to the program are projects being conducted by Tamar Ridge Ph.D. scholars Fiona Chopping and Reuben Wells (pictured above). Their appointments were negotiated by Tamar Ridge vineyard consultant Dr Richard Smart, and are funded by partnership arrangements between the Tamar Valley-based company and TIAR.

In total, these Tasmanian investigations represent an investment in some of the State's youngest and brightest scientific talent. Avenues of research range from plant physiology and vine architecture to clonal selections, flowering and fruit set, ripening and fruit maturity, vine health and disease protection.

TIAR's Dr Steve Wilson is both surprised and delighted by the group's current level of student participation. He sees it as a highly visible sign of the growing interest being shown in viticulture by the university's graduate and undergraduate population.

Prior to 2006, only one student was actively involved in doctoral research on wine-growing. Now there are six, with Joanna Heazlewood not only celebrating the completion of her Ph.D. but working alongside her former tutor as a research fellow and project mentor.

Properly funded, these latest inductees are at last being adequately rewarded for their efforts.

"Every single one of those students was in the position of being able attract an Australian post-graduate scholarship to pay for their salary," she explains.

"The various research organisations involved simply provide a top-up salary and provide all the working capital needed to conduct the research."

Dr Heazlewood believes that the quality of the group's findings will not only ultimately enhance the Tasmanian industry's store of knowledge and skills, many will have relevance to other cool climate wine regions around the country.

She says members of the group have already been involved in the national industry's current focus on grapevine flowering and botrytis control, being led by Peter Dry, Associate Professor at the University of Adelaide's School of Agriculture and Wine.

"We've become an integral part of that group of about 20 researchers working on flowering and fruitset, and we're also forming quite strong links and joint research initiatives with the University of Melbourne. Dr Kathy Evans already has a firm foothold on the national disease research, and we are lucky to have her on our team. GWRDC can see already we're not just running one-off projects here. In fact, its project manager John Harvey is hoping for on-going investment for our group, now it's achieved something of a critical mass."

The support of Dr Richard Smart – Honorary Research Associate at the University of Tasmania and perhaps the world's best known researcher and viticulturist - is also likely to give the group a significant national and international profile. The renowned vine-doctor now lives in northern Tasmania and has an active supervisory role with Tamar Ridge's Ph.D. scholars.

Ms Chopping's early season work on leaf removal and shoot girdling at Tamar Ridge last year caught the eye of visiting Professor of Horticulture and Viticulture at the University of Nebraska, Dr Paul Read.

In a letter home to his university's Department Of Agronomy And Horticulture, he concluded that the "current thinking is that these stages of development should have the most impact on grape and wine quality, rather than cluster thinning at veraison or near harvest."

Other avenues of research presently being undertaken in Tasmania include:

• A study of the way in which vine health and vine vigour affect ultimate wine quality. Reuben Wells is a former assistant winemaker at Washington's Maryhill Vineyard who plans to carry out a series of micro-vinifications on samples of pinot noir clones, harvested from discrete locations at Tamar Ridge's Kayena Vineyard after mid-season analysis of remote-sensing data.
• Post-doctoral investigations by Dr Joanna Heazlewood of the natural fruitfulness of pinot noir vines, in order to establish reliable target vineyard yields.
• Studies of pinot noir bunch structure and its effects on colour and fruit quality, being carried out by researcher Mark Robertson. He suspects plant carbohydrate levels play a fundamental role in ripening, and that common practices of hedging and leaf removal may result in the inadvertent delaying of ripening to such an extent that it compromises fruit quality in cool climates.
• An analysis by soil scientist Sam Rees of the complex interactions that place between vine roots and vineyard soils, and their implications for plant vigour and wine quality. Rees is being supervised by TIAR's Dr Richard Doyle, and his studies of yield and wine quality incorporate data obtained by remotely sensed infrared imaging.
• Investigations of sustainable management practices for botrytis bunch rot and powdery mildew by plant physiologist Alice Palmer (pictured above with her supervisor Dr Kathy Evans and Frogmore Creek's Tony Scherer). Working under the supervision of TIAR research fellow Dr Kathy Evans, Palmer's study comprises the formulation, application and analysis of the effectiveness of specially prepared compost teas.
• Study of mid-season remote-sensing data and the analysis of the effects of vineyard irrigation on vine vigour and plant health. Ph.D. student Angela Smith is complementing the work of Dr Evans and colleague Alice Palmer by investigating natural plant defence mechanisms.

Frogmore Creek Vineyard owner and organic viticulture pioneer Tony Scherer says that the success of the work already undertaken by Dr Evans and her students has seen research trials on his property progress beyond the laboratory to small vineyard blocks in 2006. In 2007, the projects are likely to be extended across a complete vineyard site.

For Tasmanian wine industry pioneers Dr Andrew Pirie and Fred Peacock, the current research initiatives are much welcomed, but long over-due.

"It's the sort of work that should have been done at State Government level years ago," says Pirie.

"The last formal investigations we had at those levels was back in the 1970s. I still refer to that data, but I think it's an indictment on the present regime that we haven't seen any solid work being on the performance of grapevines in the Tasmanian environment. We're currently very short on good reliable data."

"That's absolutely vital in Tasmania, especially in a commercial setting," adds Peacock, who played a key role in the Department of Agriculture's ground-breaking work in the early 1980s.

"Even though growers often have theories about various aspects of their vineyard management that could have beneficial results, those kinds of things have to be tested analytically. After all, if they're not being properly applied or properly measured they're of little use to you.

"Even if you do manage to run a trial successfully, whenever it comes time for a vigneron to measure their results, it's almost always being done at harvest. That's a chaotic period for most of us. It's the worst time for us to stop what we're doing to try to think clearly and rationally. We're busy looking after the 99 percent of the vineyard that's got a crop on it, not the one percent with the trial. That's when you really need someone independent to step in ahead of you and do it all for you."

First published May/June 2006: Australian Viticulture