A new vineyard training and research facility will give undergraduate and postgraduate viticulture students at Stellenbosch University (SU) access to a state-of-the-art learning platform.
This was according to Talitha Venter, lecturer at the department of viticulture and oenology at SU.
The platform was established in collaboration with Vinpro, a non-profit organisation that represents South African wine producers, according to Jana Loots, communications manager at Vinpro. It was launched at SU’s Welgevallen experimental farm in Stellenbosch on 16 April, according to Loots.
Members of the Gen-Z Vineyard project planting grape vines in the trellis block at the Welgevallen experimental farm in August 2020. PHOTO: Supplied/Anton Jordaan
The goal of the platform is to create an advanced facility for training undergraduate and postgraduate viticulture students, according to Venter. Furthermore, the platform enables students to conduct research and showcase various vineyard management practices to producers, she added.
“We [the department of viticulture and oenology at SU] now have examples of many alternative pruning and trellising systems. Previously, students had only learned about them in theory, and seen them in photographs,” said Venter.
In the past, training vineyards were established as general commercial-type vineyards with very standardised practices being applied, said Venter.
Talitha Venter, lecturer at the department of viticulture and oenology at SU, presenting the Fit-For-Purpose Irrigation Research Block during the launch of the new training platform for viticulture students on 16th April. PHOTO: Supplied/Jana Loots
“Six different vineyards have been established, each with a specific focus,” said Venter on the new vineyard training platform.
According to Venter, these different vineyard blocks are:
- A table and raising grape block;
- A wine grape and rootstock block;
- An undergraduate winemaking block;
- A pruning system block;
- A trellis system block; and
- A fit-for-purpose irrigation research block.
The SU faculty of agrisciences funded the project, and appointed Vinpro to manage it over the next three years as part of Vinpro’s Gen-Z Vineyard project, said Emma Carkeek, Gen-Z viticulturist at Vinpro, in email correspondence with MatieMedia.
The Gen-Z Vineyard project is a technology transfer project, which aims to “establish various types of demo plots, for example, new cultivars and clones, rootstocks, trellis systems, pruning systems and viticultural practices, in existing commercial vineyard blocks on producers’ farms”, according to the Vinpro website.
Six new blocks of vineyards have been established at the Welgevallen experimental farm in Stellenbosch. PHOTO: Supplied/Courtneigh Frolicks