Mapping and managing vineyard homogeneous zones through proximal geoelectrical sensing

ABSTRACT

The objective was to delimitate homogeneous soil zones that correspond to differentiated areas of growth and yield of a vineyard, using soil electrical resistivity. The soil electrical resistivity (ρ) at three depths was measured with an automatic on-the-go recording resistivity meter, the data was georeferenced, and zones of homogeneous soil characteristics were drawn. A grid of equally spaced sampling points was superimposed to the area where vegetative growth and yield data of the grapevines were recorded. ρ showed a marked spatial distribution and two homogeneous areas were delineated. ρ ranged from 48.6 to 54.3 ohm-metre for cluster A and from 90.2 to 208.5 ohm-metre for cluster B. Negative significant correlations were found between ρ and plant growth and yield variables. Vegetative growth and crop yield were significantly different between homogeneous soil ρ areas. Plants growing on cluster A had an average shoot length of 1.4 m and yielded 3.1 kg per plant; on cluster B, shoot length was 0.9 m and yield was 0.9 kg per plant. The procedure of measuring the soil electrical resistivity and georeferencing methodology proved fast and reliable, albeit expensive, and might be a useful tool in precision viticulture for delineating homogeneous soil zones.

KEYWORDS:

• Digital soil mapping
• grapevine
• geostatistics
• spatial analysis
• soil properties

Acknowledgments

Financial support for this work was provided by Universidad de La Rioja (Spain) and UTAD (Portugal).

Authors would like to thank Bodegas Pago de Larrainzar for their help during this study. We thank Javier Baluja, Victor Sicilia and Laura Moreno for assisting in the in-field assessment of vegetative growth and yield components and data analysis.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the UTAD;Universidad de La Rioja;