PT - JOURNAL ARTICLE AU - Alessandro Matese AU - Alfonso Crisci AU - Filippo Salvatore Di Gennaro AU - Edoardo Fiorillo AU - Jacopo Primicerio AU - Piero Toscano AU - Francesco Primo Vaccari AU - Stefano Di Blasi AU - Lorenzo Genesio TI - Influence of Canopy Management Practices on Vineyard Microclimate: Definition of New Microclimatic Indices AID - 10.5344/ajev.2012.11117 DP - 2012 Jun 25 TA - American Journal of Enology and Viticulture PG - ajev.2012.11117 4099 - http://www.ajevonline.org/content/early/2012/06/22/ajev.2012.11117.short 4100 - http://www.ajevonline.org/content/early/2012/06/22/ajev.2012.11117.full AB - Meteorological parameters have a crucial influence on grapevines (Vitis vinifera L.), affecting production quantity and quality. Most commonly used bioclimatic indices are not appropriate to represent intra-vineyard micrometeorological variability and in particular the sub-daily dynamics that are known to be important in grape maturation processes. The aim of this paper was to compile a new set of micrometeorological indices and evaluate their capacity to discriminate the differences in the microclimatic daily cycle induced by different canopy management techniques. The study was conducted on a statistical dataset of 3 years (2008, 2009, 2010) of hourly data of cluster internal temperature, canopy air temperature, and solar radiation intercepted by the cluster, collected in four vineyards planted with Sangiovese and Cabernet Sauvignon, located in three climatic zones of Tuscany (Italy). Starting from this dataset, some new micrometeorological indices were defined using two different criteria for sub-daily time segmentation: (i) static, based on fixed hourly intervals and (ii) dynamic, based on solar height daytime segmentation. The results showed that indices based on sub-daily data provide a better representation of vineyard microclimate than daily indices, also being able to highlight microclimatic differences induced by canopy management practices. As a general consideration, the indices more sensitive to treatments are those related to the solar radiation intercepted by the cluster (CR) parameter and relative to Broad Daylight Index (BDI), which represent the average of micrometeorological parameters in the middle hours of the day. The proposed indices enable the improvement of the characterization of micrometeorological conditions induced by different canopy management practices and therefore to better assess the within-vineyard spatial variability of environmental parameters.