Grapevines need balanced sulfur and nitrogen, not just more fertilizer
Lehr PP, Gödde V, Niehaus K, Zörb C
Crop Improvement
If you grow grapes, tomatoes, or any fruiting plant, this shows that piling on nitrogen fertilizer without matching sulfur can backfire, throwing the plant's internal chemistry out of balance and making it waste water.
Scientists found that when grapevines don't get enough sulfur, a nutrient most gardeners never think about, the plant overloads itself with certain amino acids and starts losing water much faster through its leaves. Oddly, if nitrogen levels are also kept low, this overload problem mostly goes away, meaning the two nutrients are deeply linked. The takeaway is that feeding plants nitrogen without considering sulfur can create hidden stress that hurts both plant health and crop quality.
Key Findings
Isolated sulfur deficiency caused a massive buildup of nitrogen-rich amino acids and activated the GABA shunt pathway in grapevines.
Combining sulfur deficiency with low nitrogen supply significantly alleviated this metabolic imbalance, though some additive effects still occurred.
Sulfur deficiency uniquely triggered a sharp increase in transpiration, significantly reducing the plant's water use efficiency, and researchers identified specific metabolic markers to diagnose nutrient status.
chevron_right Technical Summary
Grapevines starved of sulfur build up a damaging surplus of nitrogen-rich amino acids and lose water efficiency, but keeping nitrogen levels low at the same time largely cancels out that damage, showing winemakers and growers that sulfur and nitrogen fertilization need to be managed together.
Abstract Preview
Original paper
Nitrogen status defines grapevine metabolic response to sulfur deficiency.
Sulfur is an essential macronutrient, yet its role in grapevine (Vitis vinifera L.) physiology is poorly understood. Following reduced atmospheric sulfur deposition, sulfur fertilization is increas...
open_in_new Read full abstractAbstract copyright held by the original publisher.
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Vitis (grapevine) is a genus of about 80 species of twining plants in the family Vitaceae. The genus consists of species predominantly from the Northern Hemisphere. It is economically important as the source of grapes, both for direct consumption of the fruit and for fermentation to produce wine....