Peter Dry AM

Dr Peter Dry (BAgSc, MAgSc, PhD) has been a viticultural scientist for 40 years. He started his career in the SA Department of Agriculture in 1970. His academic career commenced at Roseworthy Agricultural College in 1975 and continued at The University of Adelaide from 1990. He retired from the University as Associate Professor in 2008. Since that time, he has been a part-time viticulture consultant at the Australian Wine Research Institute, where he has been able to continue his passion for the transfer of scientific and technical knowledge to the grape and wine industry.

Although his research has been wide-ranging, he is perhaps best known for the development of the partial rootzone drying (PRD) irrigation strategy in 2001, this was named as one of the 100 most-important technological innovations of the 20th century in Australia by the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering. This strategy evolved from initial research on the water stress physiology of the grapevine. He is the author of many scientific and popular publications on viticulture and wine.