Making sense of vineyard variability

The marked spatial variability that is known to exist in vineyards presents problems for people wishing to conduct viticultural experiments – whether these be researchers pursuing advances in viticultural science or growers wishing to evaluate new management strategies. Indeed, traditional plot or panel-based experimental designs are subject to the effects of short-range spatial variation and opportunities for meaningful extrapolation of results to other locations may be limited. A possible solution to these problems is to use a new approach to experimentation in which the whole block or management unit is used for the experiment, and in which the treatment effects are assessed using geostatistical methods.