Discuss the following (5) topics as a short essay.
Physiological explanations and reasoning will be required, not just practical solutions. Although many of these items involve questions, a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer will not be sufficient.
Briefly discuss each of the questions separately in a critical manner, summarizing thoughts and ideas, and backing them up with data or literature references. Use the preferred reference scientific publication website https://www.ajevonline.org/ – American Journal of Enology and Viticulture (AJEV) [username keematic, password socom1].
At least one article must be cited from AJEV. Additional references may be drawn from scientific publications, textbooks, the internet, or any other credible source (with appropriate acknowledgment), but internet-only resources should be used sparingly and carefully, and never as the sole source of information.
Format Details
Break up the topics into equal portions of about 400 words each.
1. Modern viticulture has gone very far in its quest for vineyard uniformity. However, might some cautious and planned planting of several different clones (or even varieties) side-by-side in the same vineyard enhance pest and disease management and, perhaps, even wine complexity (through ‘field-blending’)?
2. The ability of grapevines to ‘sense’ desirable soil properties and adjust root growth accordingly has implications for vineyard management. Could precision water and nutrient application (e.g. drip irrigation in combination with fertigation) be used to micro-manage the rooting zone of individual vineyard sections in order to enhance overall vineyard performance and uniformity?
3. The fact that grapevine root growth is strictly dependent on sustained auxin flow from the shoot system may have implications for scion-rootstock interactions. Could it be that part of the reason the same rootstock often behaves differently when grafted to different scion varieties is due to those scion varieties producing and exporting different amounts of auxin? Conversely, could the differences in vigor of the same scion variety grafted to different rootstocks in part be due to those rootstocks producing and exporting different amounts of cytokinin?
4. Very high humidity or rainfall appears to be necessary to repair cavitation in the trunk xylem of grapevines during the day. Could overhead sprinkler irrigation be used to restore cavitated xylem, when either flood/furrow irrigation or drip irrigation might be useless?
5. Plants usually coordinate partitioning to their various organs, so that they maintain a balance between the biomass invested in shoots and that invested in roots. This has implications for winter pruning, which removes a significant portion of the above-ground biomass. Could severe pruning result in a stimulation of shoot growth (vigor), because the vines try to restore the disturbed balance in their root:shoot ratio?
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