The plan: 2012-13 The GWRDC will invest more than $21.9 million in RD&E on activities outlined in its annual operational plan 2012-13 – the first under GWRDC’s new five-year Strategic Research, Development and Extension Plan 2012–2017. Here is a summary of the projects planned for 2012-13:
Program 1 Environment and sustainability Biosecurity: GWRDC will support a review of the Industry Biosecurity Plan to ensure the wine sector is prepared for any prioritised pest incursion. Climate change and adaptability: The focus will be the implications of warming temperatures on grape and wine quality and associated risk management strategies, to allow wine regions to adapt to climate change. Vine balance and yield variability: GWRDC will focus on identifying environmentally sustainable inputs in the vineyard that will result in sustained longterm production that is consistent with grape quality.
Pest and disease management: GWRDC will focus on how to improve and implement management practices that reduce inputs and improve the bottom line of producers without compromising grape quality or production. Improving spray efficacy: GWRDC will focus on best-practice spray programs and innovation in spray management practise that lead to increased spray efficacy, while mitigating the environmental and social impacts that are often associated with pest and disease control.
Program 2 Consumers and markets Consumer insights: Developing a better understanding of what attributes consumers and potential consumers of Australian wine find desirable and why. Market access: Maintain market access in existing markets and improve market access in developing domestic and overseas markets.
Program 3 Improving products and processes Objective measures of quality: Efforts will concentrate on identifying key attributes of wine quality and the drivers of these attributes. The information generated will form the foundation for developing quality metrics and identifying viticultural and winemaking practices that deliver fruit and wine to quality standards. Packing and transport: Research in this area will build on the knowledge generated in other programs to develop novel and improved practices and processes from the vineyard through to the point of sale. In 2012-13 the focus will be on the impact of transport on wine quality.
Program 4 Extension and adoption Adoption strategies: Increase the rate of adoption of R&D outcomes in the Australian wine sector, from the initial project design to the extension of the results in R&D. For more information, visit: www.gwrdc.com.au
creation; retail platforms and distribution management; price and image positioning; education (consumers, markets, growers and producers) and regulation around health and wellbeing. This may well be that marketing as a discipline doesn’t readily offer up the seemingly required pre-cursor: ‘What is the researchable question?’ Simply put, successful marketing – particularly at a country or regional generic level – is often more about promotion, positioning and key relationship management than about research. Perhaps the impending merger of the GWRDC and Wine Australia will bring these two positions into closer relation. Beyond that, the whole idea that production should be marketfocused and consumer-led has a liberating, democratic ring to it, but in Australia’s mature industry phase – searching for answers around scale and sustainability – I would be tempted to argue otherwise. This is not hubris, but rather the committed realisation that we may be better off ensuring ‘what we offer’ is better understood, available and appreciated, than by researching the cyclical and subjective turn of market or consumer preference.
Liam Heslop Winemaker, Lowe Wines and Future Leader
The plan signals a move in focus from production-driven to market-driven research – a move in the right direction, particularly with its focuses on extension and information delivery, and environment and communities. It is also interesting to note some areas of research like germplasm and vineyard profitability don’t fit the traditional short-term objectives of research. In my view, short-term profitability of vineyards has more to do with the greater industry structure and its interaction with volatile and highly competitive markets, rather than the efficiency of processes in the vineyard. September 2012 – Issue 584
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Grapegrower & Winemaker
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