p 01 schultz - sustainable viticulture

8/9/2019 P 01 Schultz - Sustainable Viticulture

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SUSTAINABLE VITICULTURE CHALLENGES IN FRONT OF

CLIMATE CHANGE

Schultz, H.R.

Forschungsanstalt Geisenheim,

von Lade Str. 1 D-65366 Geisenheim, Germany, [email protected]

INTRODUCTION

The primary challenge for the future wine industry world wide will be climate change,

because the direct (temperature, precipitation, CO2 concentration etc.) and indirect

consequences (resource management, energy efficiency, sustainability in production and

consumer acceptance etc.) will affect all facets of the wine industry. The predicted

developments in climate are region-specific and adaptation to ensure a sustainable production

chain can only be successful considering the regional characteristics with its diverse technical,environmental, economic and social implications. Europe for example, where still most of the

worlds grape production for wine is located, is extremely heterogeneous in all these

characteristics, and the structure of the wine industry, which is still largely smaller scale, as

compared to the New World, will hamper fast changes and flexible responses to the

challenges lying ahead. Additionally, the notion of tradition is deeply anchored in the

European wine world, and tradition and change are not very compatible concepts. Most

regions in Europe are concerned with respect to the future of typicity of their products,

since in many cases, the balance between vineyard site, climate, soil, variety and the applied

cultivation measures, sometimes evolved over centuries, will be perturbed or even disrupted.

In this context sustainability should not be mistaken with protecting or preserving what is

present but rather be defined as a continuous process of adaptation to future developments in

line with environmental needs, economically viable and socially compatible. The wine

industry needs to develop concepts for the efficient management of resources under a wide

variety of cultivation and production conditions to maintain sustainability. If these problems

are not solved, certain areas, where grapes are the sole agricultural commodity, will face

substantial socio-economic problems in the future.

In general, the rapidly increasing world population and the scarcity of suitable land for

agricultural food production and the confrontation with a changing climate will ultimately put

pressure on grape producing areas for the use of land and the input of resources. For most

grape producing areas the predicted developments in climate will be identical to becoming

more marginal for quality production and to be forced to improve resource management. Thiswill have pronounced impacts on production methods.

Several major challenges can be identified:

1. risk assessment for grape growing regions2. adaptation potential of grape production systems3. the CO2 problem4. Nitrous oxide, methane and the carbon budget of vineyards5. resource management from the vineyard to the customer

1. RISK ASSESSMENT

Any strategy for the mitigation of climate impacts and the resulting recommendation foradaptive measures need an assessment of the risks on a temporary and spatial scale. For


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example, the biggest challenge within the context of global warming lying ahead for many

wine growing areas of the world will be the availability of water. Predictions of the total

annual amount of precipitation and its annual and regional distribution are uncertain (IPCC

2008). However, according to many experts, water and its availability and quality will be the

main pressures on, and issues for, societies and the environment (IPCC 2008). Due to rising

temperatures and solar radiation in many places, and decreasing and/or more irregular

precipitation patterns, climate change will exacerbate soil degradation and desertification

(IPCC 2008). Desertification is often accompanied by soil salinization which today affects

7% of the global total land area and 20-50% of the global irrigated farmland (IPCC 2008).

Irrigation in agriculture already accounts for about 70% of the total water use worldwide and

the irrigated surface area has increased linearly since 1960. Driven by apparent changes in the

climate conditions in viticultural areas previously entirely rain-fed, there is already an

increasing interest in irrigation. However, population growth is predicted to reach between 8.7

billion (by 2050) in the most conservative estimation to about 15 billion (by 2100) in a A2

worst case scenario (IPCC baseline scenarios 2007). This will cause a general increase in

water demand on a global scale, forecast to become a problem for agricultural water use inlight of sharp increases in water consumption of the urban, industrial and environmental

sectors (Fereres and Soriano 2007). Some fresh water basins in the world termed water-

stressed by the IPCC (2008), that is water availability decreases below 1000 m3

capital-1

yr-1

or withdrawal to average run-off increases above a ratio of 0.4, are partly congruent to areas

where grapes are currently cultivated on a larger scale (example, the Murray-Darling River

basin in Australia). These developments will put enormous pressure on irrigated land not

directly devoted to food production with the combined consequences (temperature and water)

that grape cultivation will be partly displaced from traditional areas (Schultz and Jones 2008)

and will be forced to use more marginal land under environmental conditions previously

termed less suitable. Risk assessment in terms of water availability and management needs to

be applied to each individual region. For example, the average of all applied climate modelsin the IPCC 2007 study predict an increase in precipitation rates during winter over Central

Europe, with a decrease in summer. For Southern Europe, California and Western

Australia, however, winter precipitation rates are likely to decrease which may substantially

reduce water resources to be used in summer for human-, industrial and agricultural

consumption (Cubash et al., 2001 in Houghton et al., 2001, IPCC 2007). Of all land masses

on earth, simulations show, that summer drying will be most dominant over Western and

Southern Europe, Northern Africa, South Africa and Western Australia. Within these

larger regions, we need to use plant or commodity models capable of simulating plant and

production system water use and feed these models with regionalized climate scenarios in

order to evaluate possible changes and risks and to deduct mitigation and adaptation

practices. Figure 1 shows examples where 3 climate models were coupled to a vineyard waterbalance model (Lebon et al. 2003) to estimate changes in the length of drought periods for 2

steep slope vineyard sites in a temperate climate (530 mm annual precipitation rate) located

close to Geisenheim, Germany, 50 North. The models used were STAR II, a statistical model

developed by the Potsdam Institute of Climate Impact (PIK, Orlowsky et al. 2008);

WETTREG/ECHAM 5, a statistical model based on the ECHAM 5 simulator of the Max-

Planck Institute of Meteorology in Hamburg (Spekat et al. 2007), one of the models used in

the IPCC (2007) assessment report, and CLM, a dynamic model based on weather forecasting

systems by the German Weather Service (Keuler et al. 2009). Free available soil water of the

tested vineyards was 75mm (site 1, Rdesheim) and 175mm (site 2, Johannisberg),

respectively over the rooting depth, and slopes were 76% and 36%, respectively (Hofmann

and Schultz 2010). Irrespective of the models and scenarios used, there is a clear increase in


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the risk of extended drought periods (water stress was defined as a pre-dawn water potential

below 0.6 MPa) for site 1, but only small changes for site 2. From results such as these

mitigation strategies can be deducted such as planning an irrigation system and/or water

reservoir for the first site.

Fig. 1: Risk assessment of drought stress for 2 vineyard sites located close to Geisenheim,

Germany for the future. The analysis was performed with a vineyard water balance model

using climate simulation data from several different regionalized climate models (Star II.

Wettreg, CLM) and climate scenarios (A1B, A2 dry, B1 moist). Left; dry site with 75mmplant available water, right; vineyard site with 175mm plant available water (Hofmann and

Schultz 2010).

2. ADAPTATION POTENTIAL OF GRAPE PRODUCTION SYSTEMS

There is a large spectrum of adaptive measures which can be used in Viticulture in light of

climate change and only some will be cited here. The most frequently recommended is a

change in grapevine variety, based on differences in temperature requirements for their

cultivation (Jones et al. 2005). The problem with this aspect is on the one side tradition

precluding a rapid change in areas which have drawn their reputation from a reduced number

of varieties (i.e. Burgundy, Bordeaux a.s.o), and on the other side the fact, that we only knowthe minimum temperature requirements but in most cases not the maximum tolerable

temperature. An additional, so far underrated factor in the context of sustainability are disease

tolerant varieties, which have been developed over several decades (for instance in Germany

and Switzerland), have achieved high quality standards but in some cases can not be used

because of legal reasons or have not been widely accepted because of their names not being

that of a classical variety. However, in the sense of a sustainable practice, less input of

resources a.s.o. and less use of fungicides, this existing genetic diversity needs to be

implemented in long-term strategies.

There are numerous other adaptive measures which can be applied based on regional

predictions with respect to climate change. Rootstock choice would be one of them, using


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180 210 240 270

TR0,

ET0(mmd

-1)

ET0

TR0 NS

TR0 EW

DOY

different cultivation strategies another. For the latter an example can be given. Models similar

to the one used to estimate the water balance of vineyards on slopes in the future can also be

used to estimate water consumption patterns depending on row orientation.

Figure 2 shows a simulation where water consumption is estimated for North-South (NS)

oriented as compared to East-West (EW) oriented vineyard rows in Bordeaux, France. For

most of the season NS orientation has a larger water consumption than EW orientation, but

late in the season this trend is reversed (Fig. 2). This type of analyses can be extended to

evaluate certain canopy systems and even management practices with respect to their impact

on canopy performance under changing environmental conditions.

Fig. 2. Simulated vineyard transpiration (TR0) of different row orientations (NS, open

symbols; EW closed symbols) as compared to potential evapo-transpiration (ET0) throughout

most of the growing season (day of year, DOY) (Pieri et al. 2009).

3. THE CO2 PROBLEM

One of the biggest unknowns and thus challenges in the discussion on sustainability and

climate change is related to the lack of knowledge about how plants, micro-organisms and

pathogens will respond to a rise in CO2 concentration, temperature and a possible lack of

water simultaneously under field conditions. For this challenge to be met, the primarylimitation is the establishment of sufficiently large infrastructures to simulate future climate

developments such as increased CO2 concentration and temperature under field conditions. In

a recent editorial for the New Phytologist titled an inconvenient truth with reference to the

Academy award for the best documentary film by former US Vice President Al Gore,

Woodward (2007) described and analysed the dilemma between practical experiments with

elevated CO2 concentrations and the need to understand and predict the future responses of

plants in the field. Aside from the fact that increasing CO2 concentrations will impact on

global temperature, CO2 itself is generally beneficial to plant growth, although the response

strongly varies between species (Long et al., 2004). However, Woodward (2007) continued

that CO2 enrichment experiments usually dont mimic the gradual increase in CO2 plants are

experiencing in the field, but rather follow a step-up approach, and possible differences in


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plant responses to these approaches are unknown. Additionally, CO2 enrichment is not usually

accompanied by warming as would be predicted by climate models because of the problem

of securing long-term funding which is a bothersome limitation to a more general approach

(Woodward, 2007). Recent results from models including the physiological impact of CO2 on

plants (more biomass, reduced stomatal conductance) suggest that rising CO2 will increase the

temperature driven water evaporation from the oceans resulting in an increased absolute water

vapour content of the air. However, the decrease in evapotranspiration over land (due to a

decrease in stomatal conductance) would still lead to an overall decrease in relative humidity

and to an increased evaporative demand according to current knowledge (Boucher et al.,

2009). Plant surfaces should then heat up more due to stomatal closure adding to the

complexity of expected responses difficult to trace and simulate in conventional experiments.

It is exactly this complexity which necessitates a more global approach to setting-up

experimental systems to study the response of grapevines to the combined increase in

temperature and CO2, one of the biggest challenges ahead to understand. Few studies have

investigated the response of grapevines to CO2 either in small FACE (free air carbon dioxide

enrichment) systems (Bindi et al., 1995; Bindi et al., 2001a) or in open top chambers(Gonalves et al., 2009), but these could only describe the impact of increasing CO2

concentration in the absence of rising air temperature. Nevertheless, the generally predicted

increase in biomass was confirmed, yet the effects on water consumption remained unclear

(Bindi et al., 1995; Bindi et al., 2001a). These experiments also showed that fruit sugar

concentration should increase and acidity levels decrease under elevated CO2 (Bindi et al.,

2001b), but the response of other components contributing to flavour and aroma of grapes

were heterogeneous and indicated a significant chamber effect, with plants grown outside

responding differently than plants in open top chambers with or without elevated CO2

(Gonalves et al., 2009).

Another area, which needs to receive more attention, is the effect of global warming and

increase in ambient CO2 concentration on plant-pathogen interactions. Recent results haveshown that these interactions can be modified and could lead to an increase in insect

aggressiveness (DeLucia et al,. 2007), population biology and the sequence of potential

epidemics (Garret et al., 2006). The basis for these modifications lies within the potential

modification of the genome of micro-organisms and/or insect pathogens or the expression

patterns of genes (Travers et al., 2009). Thus, there is a potential threat to agricultural

productions systems which goes well beyond the mere spread of diseases into areas where

these have not been known previously due to global warming.

4. NITROUS OXIDE, METHANE AND THE CARBON BUDGET OF VINEYARD

Another obstacle in defining sustainable ways of production systems is the missinginformation about how much viticulture contributes to the release of nitrous oxide and

methane, two of the most potent greenhouse gases, or how viticultural production systems

could be adapted to become less of a source for these gases or even a sink (at least for

methane that seems a possibility) (Dalal et al., 2003). Equally largely unknown are strategies

to improve the carbon budget of vineyards, so far in most cases not included in carbon budget

protocols (Carlisle et al., 2006). These topics require long-term (> 5 years) research strategies

but it is important to start gathering information. To elucidate the complex interactions

between compounds and management will be a challenging task but results are urgently

needed in particular with respect to:


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- Factors relating to the production of nitrous oxide, such as nitrogen leaching/volatilization,

fertilization amount, timing and method and the interactions with management practices.

- Factors relating to vineyard carbon-sequestration such as vine biomass and cover crop

biomass or their management, since this information is absent from carbon budget protocols

in the wine sector

- Factors relating to methane production and uptake.

5. RESOURCE MANAGEMENT FROM THE VINEYARD TO THE CUSTOMER

Another challenge for the wine industry is more related to the management of natural

resources in the production chain for wine and the resulting carbon or water footprints.

Whereas the carbon footprint for entire regions has been roughly estimated (examples for the

Champagne and Bordeaux regions, (CIVC, 2007; CIVB, 2009) and some strategies devised to

reduce it, the water footprint is an upcoming issue which will affect agriculture in general.

Water management is no longer an issue restricted to individual countries or river basins.Even a continental approach is not sufficient. The water footprint of Europe the total

volume of water used for producing all commodities consumed by European citizens for

example has been significantly externalised to other parts of the world. Europe is for example

a large consumer of sugar and cotton, two of the most thirsty crops (Hoekstra and Chapagain,

2008). Currently, issues such as the amount of water imported by a country through products

(including the direct input of water used for its production and the indirect water used for

services around this product (transport or packaging) are emerging in the context of water

neutral production budgets of countries or sustainability strategies of super market chains.

Spain, for instance, is exporting 189 Mm3

water per year to the UK alone captured in products

related to grape production (Chapagain and Orr, 2008). Although these calculations and

budgets have not yet had impacts on production strategies in the wine industry, the firsts signsare appearing in California and Australia and will ultimately have a feed-back effect on

research related to irrigation management and water use efficiency strategies in viticulture.

Additionally, the water issue can not be seen strictly independent from other climate related

problems, since the release of nitrous oxide and CO2 from agricultural land contributes

significantly to the greenhouse effect, and since this release depends on soil water content,

irrigation management and organic matter content (Avrahami and Bohannan, 2009). For

grape production, however, we have currently no information on the contribution and/or

possible management strategies of these effects, another significant challenge for future

research. Also the development of new technologies throughout the production and

distribution chains may contribute to improved resource management in the future.

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