Are you planting or replanting a vineyard block? Are you changing the scion variety you currently have? Then we need to know.
Vinehealth Australia is required under the Phylloxera and Grape Industry Act 1995 to maintain a complete and accurate Register of vineyards in South Australia of 0.5 hectares or larger in size. Changes to your vines, including your varietal mix, need to be reported within three months of when they occur.
If you are changing the scion variety you currently have through any method of field grafting, we need to know what variety you changed from and to, and when this occurred.
Note that you don’t need to report your reworking when you are not changing the scion variety or clone. Reworking is the process of making changes to the vine architecture, often undertaken when trunk disease is evident, such as that caused by Eutypa. Here you are generally aiming to remove one or both of the vine cordons (arms), leaving part or all of the vine trunk below the level of infected tissue. This retains the existing root system and forces the vine to push new, ‘clean’ shoots, which you will ultimately use to replace the damaged cordon.
In order to ensure our records of your plantings are as accurate as possible, we’d love you to contact our friendly Office Manager, Jo Bainbridge on 08 8273 0550 or send Jo an email at admin@vinehealth.com.au and she will be in touch if she needs to clarify anything with you.
Tip
If you are field grafting (common forms being ‘topworking’, or ‘high level cleft grafting’, ‘T-budding’ or ‘Chip budding’), best practice is to ensure you virus screen representative samples of all material involved to ensure you are not introducing known viruses into your vineyard, and/or exposing your vineyard to potential graft incompatibility issues from the interaction of multiple viruses combining from the scion and rootstock.
That means virus testing:
- Any cuttings you’re taking from your own vineyard to then multiply up, potentially through a nursery, for future field or bench grafting;
- The new scion material (ask your nursery for a virus testing history of this material); and
- The vines you are field grafting the new material onto.
