Greenhouse gas abatement in viticulture. NSW,SA,Vic, 2011-14 [Action on the Ground]

The project aims to trial and demonstrate on farm practices to reduce agricultural greenhouse gas emission or increase sequestration of carbon in soil. The experiments include the collection of baseline N2O emission data from vineyards and from experiments that compare the magnitude of effects of different vineyard floor management practices on N2O production and soil carbon stores.
This work will enable the identification of practices which can be readily adopted by vineyard managers to decrease N2O emissions from vineyards and increase soil carbon stores.

The project will establish five on-farm trial sites, in wine-producing regions in NSW, SA, Victoria and Western Australia, to trial and demonstrate a variety of vineyard floor treatment practices and different cover crops to reduce nitrous oxide emissions and to increase carbon sequestration in soil.

Project Outcome(s)
a) Reduce nitrous oxide emissions
The project will trial and demonstrate on-farm practices to reduce nitrous oxide emissions from vineyards by trialling different vineyard floor management practices.
b) Increase carbon stored in soil
The project will trial and demonstrate on-farm practices that can increase the sequestration of carbon in soil in vineyards by trialling different ‘mid-row’ floor management practices.

Project Output(s)
The project outputs (i.e. what will be produced) include:
 A peer reviewed final project report describing the on-farm practices trialled, the project methodology used, results and outcomes in relation to the project outcomes, including recommendations of vineyard floor strategies to reduce N2O emissions and increase carbon storage in vineyards
 Database of N2O levels, climatic information and soil carbon from the project trial sites
 N2O Research to Practice materials developed and presented to the grape and wine sector
 Other communication materials including industry and peer-reviewed journals and fact sheets