Cornell Cooperative Extension Chautauqua County’s Lake Erie Regional Grape Program Explores Cover Crop Solutions
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As a perennial crop, grape production implicates many practices that deplete soil health and decrease or limit vine productivity.
A majority of the vineyards in the Lake Erie grape region have been in production for over 50 years. An intense regiment of management practices calls for various farm equipment to be driven up and down the grape rows multiple times a year. Over time, this has led to a range of soil health problems. To combat these problems, area grape growers are turning to cover crops to improve the soil in their vineyards.
Cover crops are planted with the intention of benefitting soil fertility, water quality, reducing soil erosion and compaction, suppressing weeds, and adding biodiversity to the landscape they are planted on. Cover crop rotations are common in vegetable and row crop systems, but are starting to become more noticeable in local vineyards. With assistance, local grape growers are in the process of planting over a thousand acres of cover crops. The USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service is currently funding grants through the Environmental Quality Incentives Program to incorporate cover crops into local vineyards. Depending on the grant awarded, grape growers have many options of cover crop mixtures to select from.
As this program grows in popularity, many growers turn to the Lake Erie Regional Grape Program for recommendations on what to plant. Recognizing the need for research-based cover crop recommendations, the Lake Erie Regional Grape Program applied for, and was awarded, a grant from the New York Farm Viability Institute. The funding will be used to measure how different cover crop mixes affect soil health and vineyard productivity over the next two years. For this project, the Lake Erie Regional Grape Program is teaming up with area growers currently using cover crops to measure possible benefits of planting cover crops. The focus is to collect physical, chemical, and biological data that assesses soil compaction, vine size and noxious weed suppression. The data will help to identify cover crop mixes that have a benefit to Concord production. Lake Erie Regional Grape Program officials hope the research reveals cover crop mixes that offer economically and environmentally sustainable solutions to allow growers to improve soil health.
Combinations of seed mixes include rye grass (perennial, annual and cereal), oats, tillable radish, clover (red, crimson, and white), buckwheat, canola, and winter pea. Although the cover crops are being planted now, they will have an impact on the landscape in the upcoming fall and spring seasons. Neat rows of grass and clover will have scattered red, yellow and white flowers between the grape rows.
Participating grape growers are already seeing positive results from the cover crop plantings. Some have noted soils are better drained, and with all the rain this summer, that is a good thing. As the saying goes, “grapes don’t like wet feet”. The reason why, is when the ground is saturated with water air is pushed out of soil, and the roots are unable to uptake or access nutrients and more importantly oxygen.
The Lake Erie Regional Grape Program is a cooperative effort between Cornell and Penn State Universities; the participating Cornell Cooperative Extension Associations of Chautauqua, Erie, Niagara and Cattaraugus Counties in New York and Erie County in Pennsylvania; and participating industry partners National Grape Cooperative (Welch’s), Constellation Brands and Walkers Fruit Basket. The LERGP extension team provides research-based educational programming for commercial grape growers throughout the year at venues across the Lake Erie grape belt. For more information on the Lake Erie Regional Grape Program, call 792-2800 or visit lergp.cce.cornell.edu/.