Latest / The SME Stream / Dr Juliet Ansell: NZ Winegrowers Research Centre CEO on the new research programme designed to boost NZ wine output

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Dr Juliet Ansell: NZ Winegrowers Research Centre CEO on the new research programme designed to boost NZ wine output · The SME Stream

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: The government is partnering with New Zealand wine growers to
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: essentially redesign our vineyards. The goal is to get more
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: sunlight on the violence, because more sunlight means more grapes
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: and that would mean higher yields, and the changes could
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: boost vineyard productivity by twenty two thousand dollars a hectare.
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: CEO of the Wine Growers' Research Center, doctor Juliet Ensel,
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  Speaker 1: is with us this evening. Hi, Juliet, how is this
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  Speaker 1: going to work?
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: Oh, hijack? So yeah, basically, the vineyard profitability has been
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: in a bit of a decline and it's many due
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  Speaker 2: to increasing costs of production. And I think everything that
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  Speaker 2: can be done has been done so far. It's been
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: a let incremental changes. But this new research program is
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  Speaker 2: really a step change in productivity and it's potentially about
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: doubling production but not compromising on quality. And it is
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: actually coming at a really good time as well. We've
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: got lots of replanting. About twenty thousand hectares will be
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: due to be replanted in the next ten to twenty years.
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: So yeah, it's really exciting.
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  Speaker 3: And so in practical too, what kind of difference does
• 1:01
  Speaker 3: it mean? On a vineyard. What changes, Yeah, no, good question.
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  Speaker 2: It's really a redesign of the canopy management. So it's
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: setting up the grape vine system, the training system, and
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: the plantings and really, as you mentioned in the intro,
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: enabling the vines to capture as much sunlight as they
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: can and encourage that sunlight to be transformed into fruits
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: rather than leaves or vegetative growth. So it's a new
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  Speaker 2: training system. They'll be larger, they'll be wider and higher,
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  Speaker 2: they'll carry more nodes, more shoots, and you'll grow a
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  Speaker 2: much larger but less dense canopy. So getting light to
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  Speaker 2: the right place.
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  Speaker 3: What does it do to the taste of the wine?
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  Speaker 2: So this is absolutely one of the criteria that it
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: must not compromise on taste or quality of the wine.
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: So it's very early early days. We're just about to
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  Speaker 2: start this research in ernest but you know, we've done
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  Speaker 2: a bit of pilot's work over the last year and
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: we're really confident that it's not going to compromise on quality.
• 2:01
  Speaker 3: Fantastic, Oh, it sounds really interesting. Thanks Juliet. There is
• 2:03
  Speaker 3: doctor Julian Ansel who is the CEO of the Brigato
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  Speaker 3: Institute New Zealand Wine Growers Research Center,