Delineating vineyard management zones: Intrafield spatial variability of soil properties of carbonate vineyard soils

Grapevine (Vitis vinifera L.) is a traditional crop cultivated in Navarre (NE Spain). However, in some areas, it is grown without harnessing land suitability for its cultivation. This research was conducted to approach the pedological recognition of viticulture zoning (on the farm scale) in a traditional and distinct viticultural region: Olite (Navarre). As grape yield and grape quality in a given field are generally variable and do not coincide one way or another, 13 soil profiles were selected for pedological description and analysis in an attempt to recognise the importance of soil properties. For that purpose, 45 soil samples (corresponding to the different pedogenetic horizons of the 13 soil profiles) were collected to improve zonal vineyard estimations. The most notable characteristics of the studied soils were the presence of petrocalcic horizons, high stone fragments content, mainly loamy textures, high pH (between 8.24 and 9.24), high carbonate (between 19.1% and 90.0%), and active limestone contents (between 5.7% and 26.1%), and relatively low organic matter contents (