Nutrition in focus

Nutrition is an important management tool for vine health, vigour and fruit quality. Growers’ are regularly looking for nutrition information to improve their best nutrient management practices. The aim of this project was to provide growers with relevant nutritional information and to identify the gaps in the nutritional information available.

A number of workshops were organised by the Industry Development Officer Susan Byrne. The workshops contained presentations from nutrition and fertigation experts which covered key macro and micronutrient topics. The information was well received by growers, with many indicating they had learnt something that could be implemented into their management strategies.

To complement the workshops, the text “Soil Irrigation and Nutrition” edited by Phil Nicholas was promoted as wealth of vineyard management information relevant to all winegrape growers.

 Scholefield Robinson Mildura were contracted to design and conduct structured interviews with winegrape industry stakeholder groups to identify the gaps in the nutritional information available. Nutritional gaps identified were presented to the Riverlink priorities meeting in September 2005 with the expectations to address future nutritional information needs.