Season 3, Episode 5 | Tailoring Vineyard Nutrition from Soil to Wine

00:00 Patty Skinkis

This is the HiRes Vineyard Nutrition Podcast Series, devoted to helping the grape and wine industry understand more about how to monitor and manage vineyard health through grapevine nutrition research. I am your host, Dr. Patty Skinkis, Professor and Viticulture Extension Specialist at Oregon State University.

00:21 Patty Skinkis

Grapevine nutrition is important for a healthy, balanced vineyard. However, the details of how to monitor and manage this is challenging for most growers. In the HiRes Vineyard Nutrition Project, the research team can focus on parts of the whole system— to understand nutrient status, the impacts, and how to sense the vines with new tools and sensors. But the research team can sometimes lose sight of the bigger picture without input from industry.

Nutrient management research requires that we understand what, how, when, and why growers evaluate vineyard nutrition. To help us with this question, we conducted a national survey and found that most growers rely on others to help them determine nutrient inputs— whether it's a crop advisor or consultant. It is challenging to figure out what is needed. To help us as a research team understand this further, we turn to our project advisory panel or committee which includes vineyard owners, managers, viticulturists, winemakers, and industry commodity commissions. I chose to speak with a few of those advisory committee members in Season Three. With us today is Anji Perry, to give us the vineyard perspective. Now, Anji is a viticulturist and viticulture research director for J. Lohr Vineyards & Wines in Paso Robles, California. She is a member of the HiRes Vineyard Nutrition Project Advisory Committee and a member of the National Grape Research Alliance.

Thanks for joining us today, Anji.

01:55 Anji Perry

Oh! thanks for having me. It's a pleasure.

01:58 Patty Skinkis

With your position, I'm really intrigued when I saw that you are the Vineyard Research Director. As a person who trains many graduate students, I often hear students say, “I want to be in research and in industry but not academia.” I think we sufficiently scare them in graduate school that they don't want to be academics. Of course, you're a viticulturist too. Tell us a little bit about your position and your role at J. Lohr Wines.

02:27 Anji Perry

Sure. Foremost, I am a viticulturist. That's my main part of my job. But as far as the research component, Jerry Lohr has always been super active in in the research part of this industry. So, my role in regards to that is, we do some in-house research, but we do a lot of collaboration with the different colleges and universities and researchers. We help provide both the vineyard locations and staffing to help complete projects when it's needed and when it's appropriate for the project and for the industry. So I have lots of hats at J. Lohr, but that [research] would be one of them.

03:11 Patty Skinkis

We certainly need that level of collaboration and support for research, and we couldn't do really effective research without it. So, I thank you. I work with a lot of other people with similar viewpoints, and it really makes a strong research program. So that's fantastic. How did you—this is a little bit of a tangent—but I introduced that you're also part of the NGRA, the National Grape Research Alliance. Tell me a little bit about how you became involved with NGRA and specifically how you got connected to this project, the HiRes Vineyard Nutrition Project?

03:49 Anji Perry

Sure. Again, Jerry was one of the founding members of NGRA. So, he helped establish the group. When he decided to back away from some of those external projects and focus more on J. Lohr Winery, I stepped into his role on the board.

My background is actually in soil science; that was my undergraduate degree. So, then I went on to do some postgraduate work in viticulture. I've always just had a real interest in vine nutrition and water relations. Those have kind of been my two main focus areas. So, when this project was developed at NGRA, I volunteered to serve on the advisory committee because I really found it to be very interesting and also a need for our industry to better understand grapevine nutrition.

04:42 Patty Skinkis

That's great because we don't have many soil scientists on the projects. It's mostly viticulturists and engineers, and the soil science part of it, we kind of overlook a bit. So, knowing that you're both a soil scientist with that strong background and then in addition to that, the viticulture work, what do you think in terms of vineyard nutrient management? If we take a step back and look at the whole vineyard process, or progress throughout the season, how important is grapevine nutrition or grapevine nutrient management in the grand scheme of things?

05:20 Anji Perry

Oh, I think it's hugely important. Just like us as humans—you know, these vines need to live 30-40 years. So, having a healthy vine with the proper amount of nutrition is key to longevity of the vineyards. It really is an important component—not only from a vine health standpoint but also from a wine quality standpoint. The nutrient conditions can play such an important role in producing high quality wine. So, that's always been a huge focus for us here at J. Lohr—to produce the best quality wine that we can, given our location and our circumstances. It’s just huge.

06:04 Patty Skinkis

I appreciate that statement about the health of the vines and that balance, and observing that link between a healthy vineyard and quality fruit. What would you say in your years of working with vineyards, do you see patterns in terms of the nutrient status and how—maybe not specific, you know, like NPK—but do you see some correlations with high quality fruit or even high-quality sites related to nutrients or nutrition?

06:36 Anji Perry

Absolutely. It really depends on the vineyard site. Every location is different, and every location has different challenges. But let's say you have a site where you have high boron—you know, that could be a horrible problem because your leaves can burn up. That could really affect your ultimate product. I would say, in general, nitrogen nutrition is probably the biggest component that plays a role in wine quality. At least that's how I've seen it over the years. You know, it just has such an effect on vine growth and vigor, and we definitely see that [grapes] coming in to the winery with high YAN tend to not be the best quality. They don't make the best quality wines. So yeah, it really does play an important role.

07:29 Patty Skinkis

With nitrogen specifically with that example, the vigor often correlates very well with high YAN. What are your targets? Are you targeting what a lot of people talk about in terms of YAN for that 140-150 milligrams per liter? Or do you have different kind of targets from a plant status target? Maybe you're not even targeting YANs per se, but can you talk about that a little bit?

07:59 Anji Perry

Yeah, I would agree with those numbers—around 140 [mg/L] for most of our red grapes, I should say. You know, whites would be maybe a different target. But, I think that is seems to be a good target. Certainly, we want to keep it more towards the low side than the high side. But, I would say we do spend a lot of time looking at those YAN numbers. It's one of our biggest components when it comes to whether or not we're going to fertilize—is looking at YAN. I mean, we have other parameters also, but that is certainly a big one.

08:36 Patty Skinkis

So just for context, can you let us know a little bit about how many vineyards and the size range of vineyards in terms of acreage and cultivars that you're responsible for?

08:51 Anji Perry

Yeah, so we have about a total of about 4,000 acres. About 3,000 of those are in the Paso Robles AVA, which is on the central coast of California. So, we're looking at dry, hot summers and wet winters. We have another about 1,000 acres in Greenfield, which is in Monterey County. It's about an hour north of Paso. It's a much cooler climate but still dry summers and rainy winters. Then we have just a small 30-acre vineyard in St. Helena. But the bulk of what I'm doing is in Paso, which is where all of our red grapes—well, most of our red grapes with exception of Pinot [noir]—are grown. And the bulk of what we do is Cabernet [sauvignon].

9:36 Patty Skinkis

That helps provide some context. So, when you go about developing your nutrient management plan for a season, can you talk us through how you do that? You know, this is a big question that I hear from growers here in Oregon. Even people who have been farming grapes for a long time, they feel like it's a black box, and they're always willing to hear what others do to make it less of a black box and more of a strategy to managing nutrition. So, can you talk a little bit about how you tackle that?

10:08 Anji Perry

I think of it as five different things that I look at. I start with the soils, and I look at soil quality. Then I look at water quality. I feel like, at least for our area, that plays a huge role. We're all on well water, which, you know, is maybe a little bit unique. Each well contains different amount of nutrients. Some have tons of nitrogen, and some vineyards I'll never have to apply nitrogen to for the life of the vineyard. Some wells have zero, and so they don't supply anything. And of course, we talked about the YAN already. We spend a lot of time looking at that. We do leaf analysis—that's a big component of what we do. I'd say probably the most important thing that we do, though, is looking at visual symptoms. We do not do any blanket applications of fertilizer. Everything is based off of metrics and then off of visual symptoms. So, if there's not a visual symptom for nitrogen deficiency, we don't apply nitrogen. We don't do any replacement fertilizations, which, you know, I think is still probably pretty common in this industry. I’m not necessarily saying it's bad—it's just not how we have approached it. So, we're out looking [at the vineyards] starting at bud break every month or so. We're out looking for signs of nutritional deficiency. If we do see something, at that point we look at all the other metrics and decide whether or not to apply something.

11:39 Patty Skinkis

I like the list of the five things—that really helps to focus in. I think your comment about not doing a blanket application, that's a big question. I would assume that at least in premium wine production, it's not a replacement program in terms of fertilization, in part because grapevines have relatively low needs. And as long as they're not being pushed pretty heavily— and we see that here—most growers are only really applying something when there's a common deficiency across the region. So, I think that's a good reminder for those that—it's not a prescribed fertilization plan, which also makes it more challenging.

12:22 Anji Perry

Correct. It requires a lot more effort.

12:25 Patty Skinkis

Exactly. So, you mentioned the focus on visual symptoms. So that was really important here because I think we can sometimes get too concerned about being able to test something and spending a lot of time and effort on just really getting a number. Those visual symptoms are so important to know what the vine is doing. It's that integrated approach. So, when you mentioned visual symptoms, what specifically are you looking at?

12:54 Anji Perry

Yeah, so, well, for nitrogen, it’s definitely lack of growth—maybe a little bit yellowing of the canopy. You know, and that's kind of one of the things that I'm really excited about this Vineyard Nutrition Project is I don't totally trust the numbers that we're getting from the labs. I mean, I trust the numbers that they're giving us; I don't trust their ranges as far as what is optimal and what is deficient. So, relying on the visual cues, like I said, lack of vigor, yellowing of the canopy. Now, to be honest, we rarely see nitrogen deficiency. It's pretty uncommon. And then potassium is the other one that we deal with a lot here. And again, those are, you know, lower canopy. You're looking for that interveinal chlorosis—classic potassium deficiency symptoms. And we do see that here in Paso, a fair amount.

13:50 Patty Skinkis

I think that point you made about the nitrogen being important, yet you rarely see deficiencies—I want to talk about that a little bit because I know that's where some people—when I've talked about this project to growers—will say a big part of it is our focus on nitrogen, and they're a little surprised at it because there's an apprehension to apply nitrogen, especially in regions that are highly vigorous and that connection between high vigor equals lower quality. So, I understand that. But a lot of times, I think they're so much focused on a deficiency. Like you only add something back if it's deficient, but in a lot of cases, we still want to manage it even if it's not deficient. So that might mean taking away rather than adding in, and that could be water or vineyard floor management. And so, I think that's a good point to hear you say it's not deficiency we're managing, we're managing for balance, if that's fair to say. So, how would you go about managing for balanced nutrition and are what are your tactics for doing that?

14:56 Anji Perry

Well, it's not easy, that's for sure. I would say a lot of it is just being very perceptive and just spending a lot of time in the vineyard. As far as like nitrogen deficiency, we tend to see it on tops of hills and on ridges and in very certain little spots here and there. So, for us, it would be maybe looking at doing some precision viticulture types of tasks where we look at fertilizing a small area. I'm not sure if that really answers your question.

15:38 Patty Skinkis

Yes, that's what I was looking for. Just spot treatment, dealing with whatever the issue is, so whether it's soil depth or water, etc. That's good to hear. So, another question I have is, and you kind of addressed this already from a vine to wine perspective--you mentioned that nitrogen is important, potassium issues are important as well—what would you say are the key nutrients you're looking at from a fruit and wine quality perspective as it leads into the winery? So, we talked about YAN already. Are there any others?

16:12 Anji Perry

Well, the only other one that really kind of comes to mind is we do have some spots where we have some zinc deficiency. But, I mean, that's pretty uncommon. You know, we have some high calcium soils, some old limestone type soils where you can get some deficiencies just because of excesses in the soil. But yeah, nitrogen and potassium are really the two big ones for us anyways.

16:38 Patty Skinkis

And the potassium for you—is that low potassium?

16:42 Anji Perry

It is low potassium, yeah.

16:45 Patty Skinkis

And you don't see it affecting—so it's not the high potassium end where it's affecting pH?

16:50 Anji Perry

You know what-- I take that back. So that would be in Paso. In Greenfield, we do—in the white wines—we will see some high potassium issues. We actually are doing a little bit of a research project right at the moment, looking at adding magnesium to the soil, trying to counteract that high potassium. So, to help bring down that the pH of the fruit.

17:15 Patty Skinkis

Interesting.

17:15 Anji Perry

We'll see how that works. So far, we've been doing it for a couple years, and we actually haven't seen any results with pretty high rates of magnesium, but it could take a few years to get it into the soil.

17:25 Patty Skinkis

Yeah, that is the problem with some of those trials. You have to do it for such a long time and to be able to see an impact.

17:33 Anji Perry

Right.

17:33 Patty Skinkis

Yeah, we have some of those potassium-magnesium co-relationships that we're trying to deal with in spotty vineyards here. But yeah, it's a challenge. It takes a while. So now that you've been part of the project team for the HiRes Vineyard Nutrition Project, are there any things that you've seen in the project that you think are really exciting or that you see as really the jump forward point for outcomes from the project?

18:02 Anji Perry

Yeah, I mean I think we've kind of touched a little bit on them. I think having some better nutritional guidelines is one that I'm really super excited to see as an outcome of the project. I mean, we're still using numbers from, what, the 1970s, I think, from table grapes to manage our nutritional levels. So that is, for me, one of the key outcomes. The other would be more around the idea of precision viticulture. And you know, if we have a tool where we can visually see where the deficiencies are in the vineyard, like a map—you know like a NDVI map, but for nutritional levels—I just think that would really be game-changing, really, for our industry to be able to say, okay, this is the spot where we really need to apply a little nitrogen, and this is a spot where we need a little potassium. I mean, from a sustainability standpoint, really, that's huge—to not have to fertilize a whole vineyard. It saves on money for fertilizer and it saves on the environmental aspects of applying nitrogen.

19:09 Patty Skinkis

Absolutely.

19:10 Anji Perry

There's definitely some things that I really hope that we get out of this project. So, I'm super excited about it and hope that those outcomes come to fruition.

19:22 Patty Skinkis

Yeah. I share your concern about the guidelines. And in fact, the whole project team does as well. You know I'm part of that team that developed the project. And that was really—there were two goals. One, of course is to create some sort of sensor, and the second goal—the main goal—was to come up with better guidelines. But when we do more research, we also raise more questions. And so, I think the challenge has come away from concrete guidelines and more towards this more holistic approach of putting the pieces together. I know you've been part of those discussions at our team meetings, and we are almost at an impasse in some cases because we're so stuck in “this is how we do things.” We have leaf tissue samples. And then we've got the engineers saying, well, this is what we can sense. We need to find that middle ground of how do we pull it all together. I'm hopeful that this precision agriculture, really through Terry Bates's team that he's leading in the project, can help us take those pieces and figure things out. Because I agree that the guidelines that are still being used have not really been updated by some of the labs.

And they really are somewhat meaningless. We create our own little ranges based on what we see. So similar, you know, like our numbers will not usually be terribly high for nitrogen, for example. But our vines are clearly not deficient. They're putting it to use. So, it's interesting to think about these different components.

And I raised the question whether we need to worry so much about having a discrete guideline for each one of those nutrients, or rather we have some ranges. And I know some of the research team members have gone away from saying “deficiency” to levels of “sufficiency”. I guess there is different vernacular for the same sort of thing. I think that this helps people feel a little bit safer with nutrient management. Certainly, the progress on the mapping has made a lot of difference and maybe just another tool that viticulturists can use. We're not creating the “easy button” for nutrient management through this project.

21:50 Anji Perry

Yeah, I agree. And just being able to see that where the differences are—but then you can do the work yourself to figure out if this little hillside is turning yellow and not growing well enough, then you at least compare it to the part at the bottom that's growing actively. And so, then you can figure it out yourself. You don't necessarily need a solid number, but just being able to see where differences are on a broader scale, I think, will be really useful.

22:19 Patty Skinkis

Exactly. So, without getting into great details, but trying to think of the entire year in the life of a vineyard, what percent of either time or resources and inputs do you think an average vineyard, or at least for your vineyards, do you think you spend specifically on nutrition? And that could be including sampling time or, you know, putting the inputs down. But on the grand scheme of considering spray programs, canopy management, et cetera, what do you think is a reasonable percentage, you would say on inputs for vineyard nutrition?

22:59 Anji Perry

I would say it's fairly small, maybe five to ten percent. We do soil sample every three years, and we do pull blades once a year, and we do water tests once a year. But those are all pretty quick little things. And then as far as actually applying something, it doesn't happen very often. So, I would say the percentage of time is small, especially compared to the importance of it. So, I do feel it is really important to do those things, but, yeah, it's not a huge component of what we do overall.

23:39 Patty Skinkis

Small but mighty.

23:39 Anji Perry

Yeah, exactly.

23:40 Patty Skinkis

That's the conundrum, I think, that we're always trying to figure out. And a lot of times for funded projects, you know, if it doesn't rise to the top as being a real serious concern. We always like to say that research that's on pests and diseases are so much easier to get funding for because people are scared of diseases. But nobody wants to keep their vineyard healthy, even though there's lots of questions around that. But around the sake of the vineyard longevity that could really be impactful during the whole life of the vineyard and the productivity of the vineyard.

24:21 Anji Perry

Yeah, and the quality that's coming off of that vineyard.

24:21 Patty Skinkis

Yep.

24:22 Anji Perry

What price point does that wine go into based off of that quality? It's huge.

24:28 Patty Skinkis

In terms of soils for your region, since you're a soil scientist too and that you're training in the background, can you talk a little bit about what the landscape is? You know, are you dealing with high or low pH soils and just types of soils that you're generally farming?

24:45 Anji Perry

Yeah, so we have just a huge range. I say you can walk 10 feet and run into a totally different soil type here in Paso Robles. Within the AVA, we have 11 different sub-AVAs, and most of those sub-AVAs were created not only because of rainfall but because of soils and temperature.

So, there is a lot of variability. It’s really hard to come up with one. Like, I don't even know that I would say that there was one that was really particularly dominant. I mean, we have everything, you know, Greenfield would be the only exception where most of those soils are fairly sandy, kind of moderate pH, like seven-type pHs, seven and a half maybe.

But in Paso, with the exception—well, actually, pH is probably the only one where we don't have any low pH soils. Everything is pretty much high pH. We used to—actually this whole area used to be underwater, so we have a lot of calcium deposits around here. So, calcium tends to be pretty high in most of the soils, and so that means high pH for the most part. But yeah, we have clay soils, we have sandy soils, we have soils that are gravelly to no rocks at all. So, it really runs the gamut, so it keeps me on my toes for sure.

26:00 Patty Skinkis

Absolutely. I suppose over 3,000 acres, you're going to have some variability.

26:06 Anji Perry

Right.

26:07 Patty Skinkis

So, with the higher soil pH and in the calcium, are you doing a lot of pH adjustments?

26:15 Anji Perry

We do adjust the water. So, that's the reason a lot of the native soils are kind of more moderate. They tend to be more around six and a half to seven. But the water, it's more like around eight. So, over years of irrigating, we do to get a buildup of pH levels. So, we are adjusting our water to lower the pH, which in turns lowers the pH of the soil. On occasion, we have applied, like, some soil sulfur to help lower the pH. But our main method is just to lower the water pH.

26:52 Patty Skinkis

Sure. And I suppose you're irrigating quite a bit. How much rainfall do you get? Probably very little.

26:58 Anji Perry

Yeah, so our average rainfall in Paso Robles is around 11 inches. Last couple of years, we've had fantastic rainfall—so, more like 20— but that is pretty unheard of. So yes, we do apply around an acre-inch of water. Sorry, an acre-foot of water a year is kind of typical for a normal season.

27:19 Patty Skinkis

OK. and do you start having to irrigate right at bud break or when do you usually start initiating?

27:26 Anji Perry

Yeah, so that's pretty much our plan, is, you know, we want to make sure we go into bud break with a full soil profile and plenty of water to get the vines established. So, we do usually start pretty early. And then we water through bloom. And then we pretty much try and shut the canopy down. Just very typical watering regimes as far as drying the soil out, stopping canopy growth before veraison.

27:56 Patty Skinkis

And I can imagine that's a very tricky thing to do with the different soils that you're dealing with and trying to figure out how long and how to change those irrigation schedules: start and stop and duration, all of those things?

28:11 Anji Perry

Yes. That's what I spend most of most of my summer working on is irrigation. And I actually have a staff of interns out pressure bombing. That's how we manage our irrigation, is through looking at pressure bomb numbers.

28:25 Patty Skinkis

Okay, great.

28:25 Anji Perry

Yeah, that keeps me busy, and definitely we see huge differences in the amount of water that we apply based on our soils and often, based on soil type.

28:36 Patty Skinkis

Any fertilization additions you do are probably then through fertigation or do you do any foliar?

28:44 Anji Perry

Occasionally, we have done some foliar applications of both nitrogen and potassium and certainly, bloom sprays, you know, not too uncommon for some of the micronutrients.

29:01 Patty Skinkis

Okay.

29:01 Anji Perry

That would be foliar.

29:03 Patty Skinkis

Is there any nutrient product of the micronutrients? I know there's a lot of growers out there who like to use some different micronutrients ad foliar. Is there any that you like to focus on regularly for application?

29:19 Anji Perry

Oh, I don't really have any products that really come to mind. Yeah, there's nothing that really stands out as far as being better than others. So, yeah.

29:29 Patty Skinkis

OK, so basically case by case basis for your vineyards.

29:30 Anji Perry

Yeah.

29:32 Patty Skinkis

Thank you so much for talking about what you do at J. Lohr. Before we wrap up, I have a fun question.

29:36 Anji Perry

Okay.

29:37 Patty Skinkis

How did you make your way into the world of wine grapes?

29:41 Anji Perry

Well, I went to Cal Poly, which is here in Paso or, in San Luis Obispo, on the Central Coast. I got my degree in soil science. And then I wanted to stay on—I had no idea what I wanted to do with it, but I knew I wanted to stay on the Central Coast. I moved around a lot as a child, and I fell in love with this area when I moved here. So yeah, so after I got my degree, I started looking around what to do. Decided I had to go back and get some further education and focus on viticulture because it was such a hot commodity, you know a hot topic at the time. It still is. As when I was working on my degree, I met up with Mark Battany, who is the local San Luis Obispo County Cooperative Extension person. And he hired me to help him with an irrigation project. And it just so happened that it was being done at J. Lohr. And so, I started working with him here. And he didn't have quite enough work for me for the summer, so Jerry took me on as an intern. And so, I started part-time interning in 2004— so 20 years ago. And I just haven't left. So, I've had a really great career here at J. Lohr.

30:59 Patty Skinkis

Well, that's fantastic. I think every student would love to hear the same story because, yeah, it's neat to see how people get connected and how they make their way into the industry.

And you didn't grow up in the wine grape industry, it sounds like?

31:14 Anji Perry

I did not.

31:16 Patty Skinkis

Neither did I. So, you came through schooling into this, and J. Lohr has a great team of people.

31:24 Anji Perry

We do. We have a really great staff and people really work together. And a lot of us have been here a long time now. So yeah, it's been good.

31:34 Patty Skinkis

Well, thank you so much for sharing with us today.

And for those of you listening, if you want to hear more about the HiRes Vineyard Nutrition Project, you can look up our website at highresvineyardnutrition.com and we are on social media.

Show notes and links

For more information about Anji Perry:

• J. Lohr Vineyards & Wines
• National Grape Research Alliance
• Women Who Influence The Wine World

Related podcast episodes:

• Season 1, Episode 1 | How it All Started (Russ Smithyman)
• Season 3, Episode 4 | Vineyard Nitrogen and Potassium Impacts on Wine Quality (Emily Hodson)

Follow the HiRes Vineyard Nutrition Project on social media!

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hi_res_vineyardnutrition/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/hires-vineyard-nutrition/

Podcast listener survey: https://oregonstate.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_bvkyFYGqwy23AWi

This podcast is funded through the National Institute of Food and Agriculture’s (NIFA) Specialty Crop Research Initiative Coordinated Agricultural Projects (CAP) grant. Project Award Number: 2020-51181-32159.

Audo mixed by John Adams.