Relationship between the El Niño-Southern Oscillation and yield and sugar content of wine grapes grown in Santana do Livramento, RS, Brazil

Abstract

The El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is a well-known source of interannual variability in the climate of Santana do Livramento, Campanha Gaúcha, Brazil. It affects the agronomic responses of several crops grown in the region. Analysis of a dataset comprising observations of grape yield and sugar content in 11 white and 17 red grape cultivars over the last 3 decades revealed some patterns. In the long term (several years or decades), yield and sugar content showed a negative relationship, that is, larger crop loads resulted in lower sugar content at harvest. However, a number of calculations and principal component analyses showed that annual yield and sugar content fluctuations in the short term can be better explained by considering as reference points only the results obtained for each crop one and two years before. Based on these simple calculations, there was a clear separation between El Niño and La Niña events. In the vineyards of this region, La Niña events typically tend to result in higher grape yields and sugar content at harvest, while the opposite is true for El Niño, which tend to produce lower grape yields and sugar content at harvest. The results of neutral events are typically closer to those of El Niño events.