Approaches to Grape Growing Flashcards
What are the 6 main approaches to grape growing?
- Conventional viticulture (CV)
- Sustainable viticulture (SV)
- Organic viticulture (OV)
- Biodynamic viticulture (BV)
- Regenerative viticulture (RV)
- Precision viticulture (PV)
What is monoculture?>
What practices are used?
○ Monoculture - cultivation of a single crop in a given area
○ Late 20th cent - production focused on efficiency and reducing labor costs
○ Achieved by mech, chemical inputs, irrigation and clonal selection
○ Monoculture vineyards kept weed free via increased use of herbicides and mineral fertilizers; agro-chemicals for pests/diseases; mineral fertilizers
What are the advantages/disadvantages of conventional viticulture?
Advantages
* ability to mechanize
* reduced competition from other plants
* ability to tend to specific needs of grape var -> able to inc yields and min costs
Disadvantages
* Monoculture plants more susceptible to disease and pests and spreads more quickly since all plants the same -> need more treatment,
* Nutrients depleted without ecosystem to naturally replace -> more fertilizer,
* residual chems can get into groundwater
* chems expensive
What are the 3 goals of sustainable viticulture?
What is the primary focus and what are the specific goals for that?
Overall goals - social, economic, environmental?
Primary focus - environmental
Key goals:
○ Promote natural ecosystems and biodiversity in vineyard
○ Manage waste and minimize use of chemicals and energy use
○ Reduce impact of viti on broader environ
How do growers approach sustainable viticulture and what is the benefit?
○ Be proactive predicting/preventing disease/pests before they occur by having in-depth understanding of lifecycles of vine and vineyard pests and monitoring weather patterns
○ -> allows application of spraying at the times when needed/impactful vs on a schedule
=LESS SPRAYING
What is integrated pest management (IPM)?
How is it applied?
What are the benefits?
aka - lutte raisonèe
○ Built on some aspects of organic viti, but allows use of chemical interventions when needed
○ Set thresholds for when to take action, monitor pests, set up preventative measures and eval control methods (if prevent actions don’t work)
○ Grower only intervenes if issues are reaching set economic thresholds
○ Anticipate issues, build vines natural defenses and act at most impactful time
What are benefits and disadvantages of sustainable viticulture?
Advantages
* Use of science to understand and manage threats, minimize amt of intervention needed
* Reduction of spraying
* Lower cost
Disadvantages
* The term SV not officially defined and protected - can be falsely used
* Danger that national SV standards set too low
What is overall goal of Organic Viticulture (OV)?
Improve health and disease resistance of vines by improving health of soil of vineyard
* accomplished via naturally encouraging microbes and animals in the ecosystem; rejects use of synthetic ferts, fungicides, herbicides and pesticides.
What are the key features - and benefits of each - of Organic Viticulture?
○ Use of compost - breaks down in soil, provides slow release of nutrients -> improves soil structure and increases biomass (total qty/weight of organisms in given area)
○ Natural fertilizers - restore natural balance of vineyard using animal dung, natural calcium carbonate
○ Cover crops - prevent soil erosion and improve life of soil. Done by ->
- ”Green manure” - plowing in existing organic matter
- Improve biodiversity
○ Reduction of monoculture by growing cover crops, planting hedges and creating islands of biodiversity
What is thinking on spraying - use of traditional vs synthetic - in OV?
What other approaches are used to address pests/rot in OV?
Spraying
* Many use traditional sprays - copper sulfate for mildew - and monitor weather to det when to spray;
- Can have build up of heavy metal in soil when frequent spraying necessary
* Now others feel limited use of synthetic better - longer lasting = less spraying and less use of tractors
Also use natural predators and natural ecosystem mechanisms
- to combat Botrytis - use bacteria (bacillus subtillis) that competes for space on the grapes
- use pheromones that cause sexual confusion to disrupt insect mating to limit their populations
How does OV certification work, what is the universal requirement?
○ Many OV cert bodies around the world, standards similar but different -> some wines made under stricter rules than others
○ All int’l cert board should meet standards of IFOAM - International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements
○ Universal requirement - must undergo period of conversion to organic before certification
What are advantages/disadvantages of OV?
Advantages
* Improvement in health and disease-resistance of vines
* Improvement in soil health
* Elim use of synthetic sprays
* Save money on cost of spraying
Disadvantages
* Possible small reduction in yields
* Pot signif reduction in yields in difficult (rainy, high humidity) years
* Increased reliance on copper sprays, which can cause build-up
* Increased cost - certification cost, some labor cost - esp in cold/wet areas
What are stats on use of OV?
○ 2017 - 5.4% of vineyards certified OV
○ Europe acts for 84% of OV in world; Italy highest at 15.8%
○ NZ - 4.3%; USA 2.7%
○ Largest markets for organic still wine = Germany, France, UK, USA, Sweden, Japan
Who are parents of biodynamic viticulture (BV)?
Rudolph Steiner and Maria Thun
What is biodynamic viticulture and what are some examples?
○ Regards the farm as an organism, seeking balance between physical and higher, non-physical realms - vineyard soil seen as part of connected system with Earth, other plants, and the air
○ Includes all OV practices, and adds cosmology and philosophy
○ BV growers adapt practices to cycles of planets, moon and stars; example:
- Ascending moon = summer mood = sap rising -> time to take cuttings for grafting, avoid pruning
- Descending moon = winter mood = roots favored -> best time to plant and/or prune
