In Search of Wine Quality: Soil and Water---Part 4

Following up on my last posting of In Search of Wine Quality: Soil and Water---Part 3 which was about Soil Drainage, today's post is about Tiling.
Prior to installing tiling in our vineyard, I looked online for a video that would show us how to do it. I found one made by Hans Walter-Peterson of the Finger Lakes Grape Program and blogged about here:
How to Put Drain Tile in the Field.
Part 4. Tiling
Tiling is a soil management technique that seeks to improve the soil water content which directly impacts root health and function. All vineyards can benefit from the installation of subsurface tile drainage, to improve wet soil conditions.
We put in our drainage tiling with the help of Barry, Geoff, and Bill from December 14, 2012 into January 11, 2013.

Why did we go through all of this during a particularly cold winter, you might ask? The answer to that question is that we sought to prepare our land so that the young vines would find a hospitable place to set down their roots. Tiling a vineyard addresses the question of vine root health, the part of the grape vine that we can't see.^*
Attributes of a healthy root system:

• Large and actively growing
• Creates active root tips for exploration and water/mineral uptake
• Large structural root system provides a good supply of carbohydrates and amino acids for overwintering and spring remobilization
• The site of cytokinin and gibberellin production, critical to many metabolic functions within the whole vine

Conversely, the effects of standing water on the root system:

• Contributes to low oxygen near the root zone, drastically impeding water uptake
• Will eventually initiate rotting of flooded tissues

In putting tilng in our vineyard, we tried to do what we could to promote good vine health, in our quest to make quality wines. Next up in this series
In Search of Wine Quality: Soil and Water---Part 4 Irrigation.
References:
1. K.H. Fisher, Drain Tile Systems for Vineyards, University of Guelph, Vineland Station, Ontario, February 22, 2013.
2. Previous blogs in this series:
In Search of Wine Quality: Vineyard Location
In Search of Wine Quality: Soil and Water---Part 2 Water Holding Capacity
In Search of Wine Quality: Soil and Water---Part 3 Soil Drainage
^*Note: The appropriate rootstock selection can mitigate some of the existing soil conditions. In a future blog, I hope to get to the selection of the appropriate rootstock for a particular soil type.