Partitioning the grapevine growing season in the Douro Valley of Portugal: accumulated heat better than calendar dates

• Type: Article in International Scientific Journal
• Date: 2015

Authors

António Sousa (Author) FEUP; José Luís Moura Borges (Author) FEUP; José Sarsfield Cabral (Author) FEUP; Jones, GV (Author) Other

Journal

Title: International Journal of Biometeorology

Vol. 59 No. 8

Pages: 1045-1059

ISSN: 0020-7128

Publisher: Springer Nature

Indexing

ISI Web of Knowledge - 17 Citations

Scopus - 17 Citations

Scientific classification

FOS: Engineering and technology

Other information

Authenticus ID: P-00F-ZK6

DOI: 10.1007/s00484-014-0918-1

Abstract (EN): Temperature and water status profiles during the growing season are the most important factors influencing the ripening of wine grapes. To model weather influences on the quality and productivity of the vintages, it is necessary to partition the growing season into smaller growth intervals in which weather variables are evaluated. A significant part of past and ongoing research on the relationships between weather and wine quality uses calendar-defined intervals to partition the growing season. The phenology of grapevines is not determined by calendar dates but by several factors such as accumulated heat. To examine the accuracy of different approaches, this work analyzed the difference in average temperature and accumulated precipitation using growth intervals with boundaries defined by means of estimated historical phenological dates and intervals defined by means of accumulated heat or average calendar dates of the Douro Valley of Portugal. The results show that in situations where there is an absence of historical phenological dates and/or no available data that makes the estimation of those dates possible, it is more accurate to use grapevine heat requirements than calendar dates to define growth interval boundaries. Additionally, we analyzed the ability of the length of growth intervals with boundaries based on grapevine heat requirements to differentiate the best from the worst vintage years with the results showing that vintage quality is strongly related to the phenological events. Finally, we analyzed the variability of growth interval lengths in the Douro Valley during 1980-2009 with the results showing a tendency for earlier grapevine physiology.

Language: English

Type (Professor's evaluation): Scientific

No. of pages: 15