Monitoring vine nutrition is critical for pest and water stress resilience and the efficient production of quality grapes. Jenny Garley, Chief Science Officer at NEWAGE Laboratories discusses the differences between SAP analysis and tissue tests. SAP measures real time nutrient availability in vascular tissue. While tissue tests look at the nutrients stored in the leaf; some maybe available but most are not. Learn how SAP analysis can improve your nutrient management program, from reducing nitrogen inputs to managing trace elements for optimal plant nutrition.

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[00:00:00] Beth Vukmanic: Monitoring grape vine nutrition is critical for pest and water, stress resilliance and the efficient production of quality grapes. Welcome to sustainable. Winegrowing with the vineyard team. Where we bring. You the latest in science of research for the wine industry.

[00:00:19] I'm Beth Vukmanic executive director. Since 1994 vineyard team has brought you the latest science-based practices. Experts growers and wine industry tools. Through both. In-field. And online education so that you can grow your business. Please. Raise a glass with us as we cheers to 30 years.

[00:00:38] In today's podcast Craig Macmillan, critical resource manager at Niner wine estates with a long time. Sip certified vineyard and the first ever set certified winery speaks. Speaks with Jenny Garley chief science officer at new age. Laboratories. She discusses the differences between SAP analysis. Alesis and tissue testing. SAP measures real. Time, nutrient availability in the vascular tissue. While. Tissue tests. Look at nutrients stored in the leaf. Some may be available, but most are not. Learn how SAP. Analysis can improve your nutrient management program from reducing nitrogen inputs to managing trace elements for optimal plant. Nutrition.

[00:01:21] Do you want to be more connected with the viticulture industry, but don't know where to start. Become. I'm a member of the vineyard team. Get access to the latest science-based. Practices experts, growers and wine industry tools through both in-field and online education so that you can grow your business. Visit vineyard team.org. And choose grower or business. Business.

[00:01:43] To join the. Community of sustainable wine growers today now let's listen in

[00:01:47] Craig Macmillan: our guest today is Jenny Garley. She is chief science officer at New Age Laboratories. And today we're going to talk about plant sap analysis and the idea of nitrogen conversion efficiency percentage. Welcome to the podcast, Jenny.

[00:02:09] Jenny Garley: Thank you. Actually, thank you for having me back in your team. It's always lovely to speak with you guys and be a part of this.

[00:02:19] Craig Macmillan: Yeah, we're glad you could come back. This is really great. I've heard about sap analysis in the past, a long time ago, and didn't really know anything about it because I was a dinosaur and when I was farming, I just did what I'd always done, what people told me to do, basically. That is, monitoring the nutritional status of vines is critical, obviously, for making fertilizer decisions, but also for making sure that they're happy and healthy.

[00:02:39] You know, a vine that's in good balance is going to be resilient, going to tolerate different kinds of stresses, as well as basically be efficient. You know, it's going to produce a crop successfully. And with sustainability in mind in particular, our fertilizer decisions need to be directed. Now, traditionally, um, growers have used leaf tissue analysis of leaves and petioles, usually in the spring or at brazen.

[00:03:03] Leaf sap analysis is another way of monitoring plant nutritional status. It's a very, very different way of going about it. What is the difference between the two methods?

[00:03:10] Jenny Garley: I'm really glad you asked, because everybody asks this question, and it's very, very important, actually. Even though people use SAP and tissue sampling interchangeably, they are actually quite different from one another. So SAP measures the nutrient availability of the nutrients flowing in the vascular tissue, which is It's basically the xylem and phloem.

[00:03:34] It provides a real time analysis of the nutrients that are available in the plant. And that is really one of the most important takeaways between sap and tissue, because tissue looks at the nutrients that are in the brick and mortar of the leaf that have gone into the leaf. Formation and development, the total nutrients, both available but mostly unavailable.

[00:04:04] So those are huge differences there. Other differences is that tissue is taken from a singular aged leaf, just one. And then it's placed in a paper bag because that sample needs to be dehydrated. And then it needs to be ground, and then it needs to be ashed, and then it uses strong acid to form that analysis.

[00:04:31] For SAP analysis, they only use linear pressure. No heat, no acid, no dehydration. Sap analysis, you need to sample a new yet fully developed leaf and an older yet functional leaf. And that is two points. And when you measure two points on a vine, that can give you mobility. And that is the second, uh, large difference between sap and tissue, is that one, sap gives you mobility.

[00:05:04] And that it gives you available nutrients. Tissue gives you total nutrients from a singular age leaf. The way the analysis is done, there's heat, there's grinding, there's ash, and there's acid. What you lose in that is you lose, amongst many things, is sugar. No mobility.

[00:05:27] Craig Macmillan: And when you're talking about BRICs, you're talking about carbohydrates that are in the SAP. So there's things that you can learn using SAP analysis that you wouldn't be able to learn using traditional, um, tissue analysis.

[00:05:36] Jenny Garley: We're talking about leaf bricks, which is carbohydrates and soluble nutrients. When we're talking about bricks of the berry, of the grape, that's almost all sugar and quite different than a leaf brick. Thanks for bringing that up.

[00:05:50] Craig Macmillan: So there's advantages then, because of the information that you get. What are the differences in terms of how you might interpret results from one to the other? Where, what I'm getting at is, let's say I've been doing traditional tissue analysis for, you know, ever. And then I go, yeah, the SAP analysis thing sounds pretty cool.

[00:06:08] Am I just starting over? Is there any way I can connect the dots between the past and the present and make predictions about the future?

[00:06:16] Jenny Garley: That's a good question. And we have people trying to do that all the time. Again, tissue is total nutrient analysis available and unavailable. SAP is what is available right now. So. Taking both tests, a lot of people do that, being able to equate them, that is different, they both give you different answers.

[00:06:41] I wouldn't say starting over, I would just say giving more information, giving you another layer, a deeper understanding. Is how I would, I would put that I would just say you can only go so far with tissue and would you like to have a deeper understanding? Would you like to try to cut back on nitrogen?

[00:07:03] Are you thinking that there could potentially be? An excess of nitrogen somewhere in your fertilizer program. SAP analysis can help you with that just as much as it can help you look at hidden hungers and or deficiencies. So if you want to talk about interpretation of SAP, we'll keep with the example of nitrogen since that's, um, the topic a lot.

[00:07:28] Of today, nitrogen is highly flow mobile, and so when you see a physical deficiency on the vine, that means there's in nitrogen, that means there's been a prolonged nitrogen deficiency, and you see that yellowing in the older leaves, which is due to decreased chlorophyll synthesis. SOP analysis, taken early, can help you see those deficiencies in the report long before a physical symptom occurs.

[00:08:01] Gives you time. SOP analysis gives you time. Some time, so the reason why SAP analysis can show you that is because again, we take a new yet fully functional leaf and an old yet viable leaf. So on a SAP report, when there is higher amounts of nitrogen in the new leaf as compared to the older leaf. That means those vines are trying to meet the greater demand in the new leaf.

[00:08:30] They're not being given enough nitrogen, or they're not being able to take it up. So they're having to strip it out of the older leaves to meet that demand. And when that nitrogen moves out of the old leaf to the new leaf, that triggers a deficiency. That you can see on a report many times before that older leaves turn yellow.

[00:08:53] Craig Macmillan: Which reminds me of something is the, what is the best timing to take samples for SAP analysis?

[00:08:59] Jenny Garley: Again, great question. A lot of people like to think of sap, again, like tissue. And so they want to take just one or two samples. But sap is movement. It's flowing. It's nutrient uptake. Therefore, sap analysis is really made To be taken throughout the season and if you want a minimum amount if you're going to graph the nutrients over a season and really trying to Say cut back on nitrogen or say potassium.

[00:09:33] You're going to need to have to graph that three points is the minimal amount of Data that you need to create a graph. So the minimum would be three I really like to say five. You can always cut back When the starting point usually for somebody that has never been involved in self analysis before would be a new leaf only.

[00:09:59] And the reason I say that, you won't be able to see mobility, you will be able to see. cation and anion imbalances. And if you have a field with historical differences, um, than, than your other, than your other vineyards or problem areas, I highly recommend taking that about fifth leaf down on a brand new, in, in the springtime.

[00:10:24] Because if you have a problem that you're trying to look at, Fighting it early is really the only thing that you can do. Waiting all the way until flower many times is, is too late to try to fight a deficiency and especially a toxicity. Really difficult to take the nutrients out of the plant.

[00:10:46] Craig Macmillan: On the other end of the, uh, shoot, shall we say. The last fully functioning leaf, without like a Li Cor device or something like that, how can I pick which one of these older leaves is still really a functional leaf? And by that, do you mean in its full photosynthetic capacity? Because you've got what, it's about what, 40 days?

[00:11:09] Um, is where the peak is? Something like that? Is it, are there visual signs? Is there something textural about it? Is there color about it that I can go, oh, I need to go five leaves up, or? Four leaves up, or whatever.

[00:11:21] Jenny Garley: We provide pictures and protocols for taking a sap analysis, especially for vines. We have a beautiful picture of a vineyard, a vine, and where to take your new and your old leaf. Many times those older leaves are thicker. They're definitely darker in color than the new leaf, but we don't want to have a lot of crunchy edges.

[00:11:45] And the reason I say that is because sap analysis, again, is a liquid, and if you send in leaves or somebody sends in leaves that looks like they've been raked up off the ground, that's essentially going to be a tissue test, not a sap analysis. That would be considered dead weight. We need about 90 to 100 grams per sample.

[00:12:11] And if you. sent in a sample with a whole bunch of yellowing, crunchy leaves. That weight doesn't matter because we won't be able to extract any volume from it. So you'll need to go one to two up. That's why we say oldest yet viable leaf. We like to have some moisture in there. We need to be able to extract, um, a volume of sap from the vascular bundles.

[00:12:40] So in a vineyard on a. Absolutely brand new, very healthy vineyard that the old yet viable leaf could be the oldest leaf, but on an older vineyard, maybe diseased, fighting something, having trouble taking up nutrients, maybe have some root issues, that oldest viable leaf might be the third up from the oldest leaf.

[00:13:07] Because we do need a viable green leaf with moisture in it.

[00:13:15] Craig Macmillan: Yeah, I'm kind of thinking about, um, the directions are good, and you have, uh, some resources to help. I'm also now thinking about, like, just touching, squeezing, breaking some of those older leaves. You can pop them off real easy. There's already an incision started, and you squeeze it, and there's nothing there.

[00:13:29] And then other ones you can take, and they're nice and green, and you can rub them in your hands, and your hands turn green. You know, and you go, okay, that's probably the one that's gonna work. It's easy enough to do. So we're talking about nitrogen, but also you mentioned something else that made me think of something, and that is, what about other nutrients, including like, micronutrients?

[00:13:44] Do those show up in SAP analysis, or is this just for nitrogen?

[00:13:48] Jenny Garley: Absolutely. We have a whole trace element. area on a report. It goes in alphabetical order from aluminum, which is actually toxic. It's a heavy metal. We do provide that analysis for you going all the way down to zinc. The majority of trace elements are semi mobile to non mobile except molybdenum and nickel.

[00:14:15] Those are mobile, but they're in very, very, very, very small quantities. So reading those on a SAP analysis is reading the parts per million. And not necessarily comparing the new to the old.

[00:14:29] Craig Macmillan: So I can use this to make micronutrient decisions. You know, traditionally we take, um, Petio samples around Bloom set and then make decisions for applying some micros a month or so later, which has always been interesting to me because they need the micros earlier than that, but that's always been the way that was like, you just can't, well, okay, let's put it on there and hope for, hope for some, something next year, but that's the way we've always done it, it seems like we're kind of hoping that there'll be something there next year.

[00:14:53] Now, SAP analysis, you had mentioned you can do quite early. So might I be able to do SAP analysis well before Bloom? Like you mentioned, like maybe once I have four leaves and I'm still in the elongation stage, the cluster, and get my readings and be able to make my micro decisions a little earlier.

[00:15:10] Jenny Garley: Absolutely. Absolutely. And what you brought up is taking a traditional tissue test later after flower or even the veraison. You're right. You've missed the whole entire window of applying trace elements. Because trace elements, are so needed for photosynthesis and the plant really, really needs to photosynthesize, especially very early on to create energy for the vine, especially when they're trying to actually create leaves on that vine.

[00:15:41] Trace elements are needed. Trace elements needed for enzymatic Actions and functions in the plant. And they're also basically there to help the macronutrients work better. All of those things need to happen very early on in the, in the plant. So yes, using SAP analysis to see how and if micronutrients are being taken up into the plant early on is vital in my opinion,

[00:16:10] Craig Macmillan: That makes sense. Your lab has an interesting way of reporting Nitrogen because it takes different forms and you will see that in Tissue reports, but you have a whole different way of kind of expressing and interpreting them That's the nitrogen conversion efficiency percentage the nice percentage. I believe that's what you call it Tell us more about that.

[00:16:32] I think I think it's an interesting concept

[00:16:34] Jenny Garley: I have been talking about this for years and was doing the math for individual clients and companies. And I thought, you know, we should just put this on our report. Most people start on their SAP analysis path with nitrogen. There's a lot of interest in that. On a SAP analysis report, the lower the measurable N in nitrate and N in ammonium.

[00:17:04] means that the plant taking up and converting the majority of nitrate and ammonium into amino acids and proteins. If there is high measurable nitrate or ammonium, the plant is having a conversion problem. And when the plant has a conversion problem, Before a grower goes and tries to add more nitrogen, they may want to figure out why their plants are unable to convert the nitrogen that the plants were already being given.

[00:17:37] It's very, very important when sap analysis samples are taken that they are put in a cooler because in tissue, there's heat and grinding, which makes ammonium and nitrate volatilize. Which is why sap samples need to be kept cool in order for our NICE number to be the best it can be, to give the very best data.

[00:18:06] When leaves get warm, you can no longer measure. Nitrate and ammonium. So, keeping those leaves cool and following those protocols, and I know I bring this up during nitrogen conversion, but you really do need to have cool leaves in order to have very, very good nitrate and ammonium numbers so that we can compare it to total N and give good, informative, nice percents.

[00:18:32] Craig Macmillan: If I'm seeing and if I'm understanding this correctly if I have high Ammonium high nitrate that means we were not converting nitrogen into the forms that the plant needs, in terms of proteins, amino acids, things like that. Are there recommendations or practices or things that I might think about doing to influence that?

[00:18:54] Jenny Garley: The first one, if the NICE number, the Nitrogen Conversion Efficiency percent, is low. So, low for grapes would be under 90. Grapes are actually fairly good at converting. If you were to look at corn or another crop, corn is actually very inefficient at converting. So, when we're talking about grapes, The nitrogen conversion efficiency percent really should be around 90 or above.

[00:19:20] If it's not, and you're falling into the 80s, even getting into the 70s, the first thing I would look at is your total N, and is it excessive? If it's excessive, stop right there. Stop sign. Because the plants can only convert so much nitrogen in a 24 hour period, and if the plants are being overfed, that is number one on the list to Stop doing that practice because it's, it's creating poor conversion.

[00:19:49] So that right there costs no more money for fertilizer. Just actually stop putting on nitrogen. And I would take another stop sample, get your report and see if. The new and the old leaves are actually, uh, very close together, very balanced. Because if you have a lot more nitrogen in that older leaf, that could be the problem for your nitrogen conversion right there.

[00:20:14] Step two would be looking at your macronutrients that are involved. That would be sulfur, that would be magnesium. One people forget a lot is phosphorus. Phosphorus creates ATP. If you're putting a lot of nitrate in, your plants actually need more energy to convert nitrate into amino acids and proteins.

[00:20:36] So that's another one to look at. The nitrogen conversion efficiency process actually means water. So looking at your water levels and are the vines getting enough water actually comes into play. One nutrient that people don't talk about a lot is calcium. Calcium is actually the master communicator nutrient, and so if calcium is quite low, the plant is having a hard time communicating for its needs, um, especially for nitrogen conversion.

[00:21:10] And then going into your trace elements. Zinc, manganese, moly, copper, iron, those are all nutrients that are needed for good nitrogen conversion.

[00:21:22] Craig Macmillan: So this would influence maybe my formulations, my choices. Sounds like my timing also might be influenced.

[00:21:30] Jenny Garley: Yeah. Nitrogen conversion is very influential on other nutrient application timings. If you're because of the way some people have very large vineyards and they're not able to spoon feed nitrogen as much as they would want. So understanding what type of nitrogen they're putting out and putting other fertilizer that could help convert is, is huge.

[00:21:55] Craig Macmillan: Which actually touches on another idea of talking about timing. I don't hear people talking about in season fertilization that much. Usually that's an end of season thing, and I think the philosophy is the plant's going to pull that up as it goes dormant, and it's in storage there in the trunk, ready to go for the spring, and then the plant will take it from there.

[00:22:16] Obviously there's a big nitrogen demand during the growing season, SAP analysis would help you identify whether that demand is being met, or whether it is too great, or whatever. So this would be a way of fine tuning your fertilization program, potentially with a little spoon feeding in the middle of the season.

[00:22:34] Does that make sense?

[00:22:36] Jenny Garley: Oh yeah, that makes sense. Again, taking that SAP analysis as early as possible to really see, are you going deficient early on? You really don't want to go deficient early on in the season, especially if The majority of your nitrogen applications are in the ball. And how can you help the conversion if you are getting enough nitrogen but the vines aren't converting it very well.

[00:23:02] So that really looks at dollars at that point. If you want to look at conversion, if you get down to the 70 percent mark, it means every dollar of nitrogen you're putting out, the plants are using 70 cents. So if you would like to make that 80 cents or 90 cents and actually try to pull back on your nitrogen, In order to do that, the plants have to become very, very efficient at the nitrogen they are being given.

[00:23:27] And then people are really starting to be able to cut back on their nitrogen when their efficiency gets very good. And that's when people start pulling back 10 to 15, even 20, 30 percent, when they consistently have nitrogen conversion efficiency in the 90 percent.

[00:23:46] Craig Macmillan: And it sounds like that's, um, influenced by some of these other micronutrients, um, like calcium, for instance, and phosphorus for the production of the ATP. Do you have some examples of clients that you've worked with that have adopted this technique and some of the changes they might have made?

[00:24:02] Jenny Garley: The majority of people that start with SAP want to look at their nitrogen efficiency. They are somewhere in the middle of trying to make a decision on cutting back. And so I highly suggest, if that's where you are or somebody in the industry is looking, to take as many samples as you can for the first season and graph it out.

[00:24:26] And you can see where the vines are taking up the most amount of nitrogen and where they actually start pushing it down to the older leaf. And right when they start pushing it down to the older leaf, that's a trigger for somebody that can make a management decision of, we add nitrogen and the plant is pushing it down to the, Older leaf, first of all, then vines aren't using it anymore.

[00:24:51] Secondly, that's throwing away money because the plant is not using it. It's storing it. If you are going to use that nitrogen when the leaves. fall and try to incorporate that into the soil, great. But if you're going to prune it off, that, those are the decisions that you can make from that, that type of scenario.

[00:25:15] Some folks are looking at, um, using this when they have high nitrates in their irrigation water, which is really problematic. And how to utilize the nitrogen that they already have during irrigation to convert it into amino acids and proteins so it doesn't affect fruit quality. That's another avenue that people have.

[00:25:38] They already have the nitrogen there, they just need to convert it, they just need to utilize it.

[00:25:42] Craig Macmillan: That's interesting. Yeah, I hadn't really thought about it that way, but that's true. What would be the one thing that you would tell a grape grower regarding this topic, in terms of the benefits of sap analysis or tissue analysis, or around managing your nitrogen and measuring what the conversion rate is?

[00:25:58] What's the one piece of advice or one takeaway you would give a grower?

[00:26:02] Jenny Garley: A lot of grape growers, wine grape growers, I talk to have a lot of vine stress. And if that's the case and you're using sap analysis to try to mitigate that, then you actually do need to look at your aluminum. And very few people do because when high amounts of aluminum are taking up, there is a stress.

[00:26:23] Trying to mitigate that and looking at sap analysis And trying to see when that stress occurs. So, when your aluminum starts to go over one part per million, the vine can be starting into a stress. And sap analysis can see that early. Anything lower than a part per million, I call that background aluminum, because aluminum is in every single soil.

[00:26:47] You're not going to get away from it. It's there naturally. So, When you're starting to see stress, then you need to look at other parameters such as E. C. electrical conductivity. A lot of people don't look at that either, but when elect electrical conductivity gets very high, the roots could actually be burning.

[00:27:06] And that's not really a nutrient source. situation that is a watering situation that is a high salt index fertilizer situation. Those are things that can be seen in a SAP analysis early on and decisions can be made to try to mitigate stress and keep our vines happy and healthy longer.

[00:27:28] Craig Macmillan: That is great advice. I just want to thank you for coming back. This is really great. And thanks for sharing your work, your insights. Our guest today has been Jenny Garley. She is Chief Science Officer at New Age Laboratories. Thanks for being on the podcast. This is really fun.

[00:27:44] Jenny Garley: It was fun. I enjoyed. Thank you. It is. It is.

[00:27:51] Craig Macmillan: That's what we're all about. Oh, and where can people find out more about you? And

[00:27:55] Jenny Garley: on LinkedIn quite a bit. Jenny Garley. Uh, I also have my first article that I wrote in the Progressive Crop Consultant magazine, the January, February issue. And that is the difference between leaf tissue and sap analysis. And then, of course, New Age Laboratories, our website.

[00:28:17] Beth Vukmanic: Thank you for listening. Today's podcast was brought to you by . Guillaume, grapevine nursery. Looking for top tier vines, Guillaume greapvine nursery pioneers in the nursery business since 1895 and serving Northern California since 2006 offers premium selections backed by generations of French expertise, providing the best genetic material for healthier growth and superior fruit to quality. Elevate your wine. With certified plants, you can trust.

[00:28:52] Make sure you check out the show notes for links to Jenny Her article this this year and her previous interview on the sustainable wine growing pods. Podcast 115 examining plant nutrient mobility. With SAP analysis. If you like this show, do us a big favor by. By sharing it with a friend. Subscribing and leaving us a review. You can find all of the podcasts at vineyardteam.org/podcast. And you can reach us at podcast@vineyardteam.Org. Until next time, this is sustainable Winegrowing but the vineyard team.

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251: Vine SAP Analysis to Optimize Nutrition

Sustainable Winegrowing