《年份的足跡：國際媒體報道寧夏葡萄酒》：
　　Water is also a major concern. Ningxia is in an arid belt but vineyards have squeezed by with 200 milliliters of rain per year and irrigation via wells, stored rainwater and the Yellow River.Expansion plans will stress that river water supply since Ningxia, like other regions and provinces, has a quota and faces competition from downstream rivals with their own growing economies. Within Ningxia, there is competition for water. One winery manager says the two biggest concerns are labour and water. If neighbouring vineyards, or neighbours with other crops, get first claim there simply might not be enough left-or on time-for the operation.
　　Ironically, water-in the form of atypically heavy rains-revealed further challenges this year. Interspersed with high temperatures, those rains created ideal conditions for downy mildew, with the damage exacerbated by a relatively inexperienced wine industry. Some farmers were sceptical when advised to spray fungicides and only took the advice to heart when the disease became visible, so the effectiveness of spraying was greatly reduced. Disease wiped out at leasta 20 percent of the 2012 crop, with estimates up to 40 percent and some vineyards almost totally devastated. Such destruction could have been partially mitigated and perhaps-with this year's lesson in hand-will be next time but it shows an industry that's still learning.
　　The region also has chronic vineyard issues, chief among them those harsh winters. Up to 10 percent of vines die annually due to cold, dryness and/or the process of burial. This is something industry seems resigned to. (If someone came up with a solution to burying the vines, he or she would no doubt be a local hero.) The results include gaps in vineyards, damaged vines, and turnover every eight to ten years. Other chronic problems are emerging, including diseases, with those affecting trunks only now coming to the fore and posing a particular challenge for the grape with which Ningxia so closely identifies itself, Cabernet Gernischt. And that's not even to raise the issue of whether or not the ideal grape varieties were planted in the first place.
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