Viticulture, Volume 1 Resources

About this book

This book is a second edition of Viticulture, Volume I: Resources, which was published in 1988. The companion book. Viticulture, Volume II: Practices, appeared in 1992.

This edition of Volume I is about 50 per cent longer than the first. The authors have searched the literature widely, covering earlier classical works and modern scientific publications; hence, Viticulture Volume 1: Resources lists are lengthy. Much of the increase, however, is new material within those chapters that were also in the first edition – especially in the sections on regions, soils and climate. In addition, there is an entirely new chapter on berry development and grape quality. The increases in the number of researchers and in research funds and facilities have fuelled the changes.

A wide array of basic science is used in scientific studies concerning viticultural problems. Two in particular are prominent: a) Plant Physiology, now augmented by molecular methods, has helped explain problems of the plant itself; and b) Organic Chemistry has been an important tool for physiologists and for research on the transformation of the grape crop into its marketed products. A recent account of Faraday's early work to purify by distillation the exceptionally stable benzene molecule illustrates how a whole new discipline crucial to the study of all branches of biology – Organic Chemistry – can emerge as a result of a specific endeavour. This new edition of Viticulture, Volume I: Resources documents the evolution of viticultural science since the publication of the first edition through the specific endeavours of a burgeoning range of researchers. It also demonstrates the wide-reaching potential for viticultural science to influence, and be influenced by, developments in other areas of science, including new helds.

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