Review: soil physical and chemical properties as indicators of soil quality in Australian viticulture

Soil quality, in a viticultural context, may be defined as the soil's capacity to support grapevine growth without resulting in soil degradation or otherwise harming the environment. In other agricultural systems, various approaches for evaluating soil quality have been adopted, and numerous soil physical and chemical properties have been used to characterise it. Here, we consider the relevance and suitability of these approaches and the choice of soil properties for Australian viticulture. As a consequence, the soil physical and chemical properties suggested to comprise a minimum data set for ongoing monitoring of soil quality in Australian viticulture are aggregate stability, air‐dry soil consistence, pH, electrical conductivity, cation exchange capacity (if pHCₐ