Viticulture in California

With more than 2,400 wineries and 4,600 grape growers, California produces 90% of all U.S. wine and stands as the world's fourth largest wine producer. The Cal Poly Vineyard offers viticulture students a chance to get hands-on experience with a commercial vineyard. Cal Poly students maintain and cultivate fourteen acres of vineyard land located on the Cheda Ranch property on campus. Cal Poly’s College of Agricultural also partnered with the Gallo wine corporation in 2002 to plant 150 acres of new vineyeards in the Chorro Creek Ranch. While use of the Cheda vineyard is decreasing because of the new Gallo Vineyard on the Chorro Ranch land, it will continue to be a significant resource for Cal Poly students. Student can use the grape plants on these ranches for research, internship, and senior project work. The Gallo Vineyard is wonderful learning tool for Cal Poly students. While Cal Poly owns the land and uses it own water, the grapes belong to Gallo Vineyards and are used to make the well-known Gallo wine. The Gallo Company uses it's own workers and machinery, and the Cal Poly students are given the chance to learn about the newest technologies in viticulture. Students work the land as part of the Enterprise Projects.

As almost any given farmer in the country, Cal Poly agriculturalists are confronted with no shortage of environmental challenges. Farmers face a shortage of good quality irrigation water, a depletion of fertile soil, and the erosion of natural resources due to pollution. Cal Poly addresses these issues with several practices. First off, the university developed small-scale experiments to test the principles of sustainable growing. Cal Poly also recycles agricultural resources and wastes, and has researched the option of using polycutlures for pest management. In the vineyards themselves, Cal Poly found new ways of organizing the vines in order to reduce erosion, improve plant nutrition, as well as reduce the effect of pests and disease....