Water resource management during difficult times

摘要

In the last five years, grapegrowers in the Murray-Darling Basin (MDB) and other production regions of Australia have been presented with unprecedented challenges relating to the security of water supply. Drought conditions and severe water restrictions in the MDB have taken all irrigators into unknown territory. Nothing is more fundamental to grapegrowing than having adequate water available for vine growth and cropping. Adequate water in a wet environment (200-250mm rainfall) is a supply that provides the full requirement of the vines, while in an arid environment, the vines need a supplementary water supply available to ensure that yield and grape quality is not compromised by water stress at critical phenological stages like flowering, fruitsetand maintenance of canopy at the sugar accumulation stage.