1 Mar., 1902.] QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. 187 
Viticulture. 
MANURING VINES. 
By E. H. RAINFORD, Instructor in Viticulture. 
The only individual who consistently manures his vines in Queensland is 
the “lazy man,” for he systematically fertilises his Isabellas with empty jam 
tins and broken pickle bottles But although his prudence is to be commended 
his choice of material is hardly satisfactory, for it takes long to decompose and 
is apt to communicate a tinny flavour to the grapes.* 
There would appear to be a general idea that vines never require 
manuring, and that they will continue to bear fruit for any number of years 
without exhausting the soil or requiring fertilisers. This is a mistake. The 
writer has frequently seen vineyards of under fifteen years of age, when they 
should have been in their prime, showing all the signs of insufficient nutrition 
from exhaustion of one or more of the chemical constituents of the soil 
necessary to their welfare. Undoubtedly some deep rich scrub or alluvial soils 
will take a long time to exhaust of their fertilising elements, but on this class 
of land the vine is not so frequently planted as on the lighter, loamy, sandy, or 
gravelly country, and vignerons will most certainly find it to their advantage to 
use manures on these soils after cropping them for several years in succession. 
The gravelly and loamy ridges between the coast and the range ; the same kind 
of ridges about Warwick and on the Eastern Downs generally ; the bright-red, 
sandy loam ridges and sandy alluvials in various parts of the State require the 
addition of one or more fertilisers after several years heavy cropping if the 
quantity and quality of the fruit is to be kept up. 
Authorities differ as to the amount of each element removed from the soil 
by an average crop of grapes, and this is easily understood if we take into 
consideration the effect of climate, rainfall, &c. 
Professor Krichauff, in his pamphlet on vine manuring, says that a hectare 
(2 acres) of vines gave, in 1892, 143 gall. of wine, which took from the soil 74 
Ib. of nitrogen, 22 1b. of phosphoric acid, and 82 lb. of potash. ‘lhe crop of 
1893 of 1,224 gall. removed 2 Ib. of nitrogen, 23 Ib. of phosphoric acid, and 
102 lb. of potash. It is evident that the first crop was a drv season crop 
with a considerable amount of cellular matter and seeds, whilst the second must 
have been a heavy watery crop. 
Muntz puts the amounts removed by an average crop at 48 lb. of nitrogen, 
11°5 1b. phosphoric acid, 38 Ib. of potash per acre. 
Coste Floret states that the elements removed from one hectare of soil by a 
crop of 94 hectos of wine (2,068 gall.) together with canes and leaves are :— | 
37°5 kilos or 82°5 lb. of nitrogen 33 Ib. per acre. 
10 » 9, 22 Ib. of phosphoric acid = OND ee 
30 » 3 97 Ib. of potash i =697/1b) enn 
80 » 3, L76 lb. of lime = 70i1DN fst as, 
To give some idea of the amount of impoverishment that each crop causes, it 
will be sufficient to state that to replace in the soil the 48 lb. of nitrogen, as 
caleulated by Muntz, 250 lb. of sulphate of ammonia would have to be put to 
it, or about 400 lb. of dried blood. ‘To replace the 38 lb. of potash, 75 lb. of 
sulphate of potash or 300 lb. of kainit would be required, and for the 11°5 lb. 
of phosphoric acid, about 90 Ib. of Thomas’s phosphate or 100 Ib. of super- 
phosphate would have to be used, or from 6 to 8 tons of farmyard manure. 
* On digging round an Isabella grape vine which bears a ane? crop every year we removed 
jeatly aperoe at of old tins, kettles, lamp glasses, &c., placed there by a former tenant of-the 
ouse.—Kd, Q.4.J. 
