Vineyard experimentation in Australia: motivations, approaches and implications for change

Experimentation is important for farmers to sustain and improve farming businesses. We interviewed 35 grape growers and 8 viticultural consultants across Australia to investigate why and how experiments are conducted during grape production, the perceived value of current approaches and opportunities for change. The interviewees conduct experiments, often over several seasons, to learn about alternative practices, to gain knowledge, to enhance confidence in changing practice, and to solve problems. Trial approaches are diverse. Growers value conclusive, robust results for confident decision-making; however, they are constrained by available time, labour and lack of efficient, objective measurement of crop responses. Spatial variability in land is viewed as a contributor to non-uniform fruit yield and composition and recognised as a factor confounding trial results. Growers’ desire for robust results and challenges related to variability suggest a need for efficient approaches that incorporate spatial information and generate more useful information for more confident decision-making.