Abstract
Grapevine growth and production is limited in the Port Macquarie region by acidic subsoils and high exchangeable aluminium. Root growth is restricted to about 15 cm depth, and despite high growing season rainfall (920 mm, September to March) which exceeds predicted evapotranspiration for the period (400 mm), the vines suffer periodic water stress. Slotting is a technique of subsoil amelioration allowing thorough incorporation of lime to depth. Slots are 150 mm wide, and in this experiment were installed to 400 mm depth. The aim of slotting is to improve root growth in the subsoil, thus increasing plant access to water and nutrients previously inaccessible. The experiment was conducted in a Chardonnay vineyard planted in 1982. Lime was incorporated into the slots at about 2 t ha−1 with a further 8 t ha−1 spread on the surface, mixed and moved to form an undervine bank. Soil and root samples were taken in February, 1990. Slotting caused pHCaCl 2 to increase from 4.3 to 5.0 to 400 mm depth. Associated with this was a more than ten-fold increase in root length density. The slotting technique gives the opportunity to improve dense, poorly drained acidic soils and make them suitable for horticulture production.
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© 1991 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
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Kirchhof, G., Blackwell, J., Smart, R.E. (1991). Growth of vineyard roots into segmentally ameliorated acidic subsoils. In: Wright, R.J., Baligar, V.C., Murrmann, R.P. (eds) Plant-Soil Interactions at Low pH. Developments in Plant and Soil Sciences, vol 45. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-3438-5_50
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-3438-5_50
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