Jan 22, 2025 | ORGANIC VITICULTURE, VINEYARD

Organic Viticulture

ORGANIC VITICULTURE, VINEYARD

Written by torosidiswine

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Conventional vineyard management, entails the intensive use of all available resources, like water and chemical fertilizer inputs, crop mechanization, genetic modification, and chemical (or natural as well) pesticide products to maximize crop yield in terms of productivity and efficiency per unit of land.

Chemical fertilizers are synthetic substances used in agriculture to provide essential nutrients to plants, primarily nitrogen, phosphorus, and K, to enhance crop productivity and yield . Fertilizers play a pivotal role in modern agricultural systems by maintaining the balance of nutrients in the soil and boosting plant growth. However, the use of chemical fertilizers has been a subject of debate. Although they have contributed to increased food production, their excessive and imbalanced use has led to significant environmental and health concerns.

 

Interestingly, while chemical fertilizers were initially considered a boon for humankind, scientific advancements have revealed their detrimental effects on soil health and groundwater quality.  The problems caused by chemical fertilizers extend beyond environmental concerns, including serious human health risks and long-term agricultural sustainability issues. These findings highlight the urgent need for alternative approaches, such as biofertilizers and sustainable agricultural practices, to mitigate the negative effects of chemical fertilizers while meeting global food demands.

The pesticides used in agriculture include herbicides, insecticides, fungicides, nematicides, and rodenticides. Herbicides account for the largest market share (around 40%), followed by insecticides (17%) and fungicides (10%). These chemicals are used to control weeds, insects, diseases, and other pests that threaten crop production. However, the widespread use of pesticides has resulted in significant environmental and health problems. They pose risks to human health and the natural environment, affecting beneficial insect groups, aquatic species, and soil microorganisms. Pesticides can accumulate in soil and water, causing harm to ecosystems and loss.

 

Although pesticides play a crucial role in increasing agricultural productivity and feeding the growing human population, their use comes at a considerable cost to ecosystems and human health. The negative impacts of pesticides highlight the need for more sustainable agricultural practices, such as integrated pest management and biopesticide development, to protect both the environment and human well-being.

Viticulture is an intensive sector of horticulture characterized by a high degree of land use (Roselli et al., 2020). However, in recent years, organic viticulture is beginning to spread on larger areas (Meissner et al., 2019). The organic viticulture is mostly concentrated in Europe (over 85% – OIV, 2019); among the European countries, Spain, Italy, and France encompassed the majority of organic grapevine growing areas (Mann et al., 2012)

In 2019, a total of 63 countries across all continents were involved in organic viticulture and the certified organic vineyard surface area was estimated at 454 kha, representing 6.2% of the world’s total area under vines.

 

 

Organic viticulture is a method of grape growing that implements sustainable, environmentally friendly practices without the use of synthetic chemicals. Its core principles include maintenance of soil health and the use of biological controls and organic-approved substances to manage pests and diseases instead of synthetic pesticides, to safeguard biodiversity and environmental sustainability. Organic viticulture employs practices that conserve water, and adheres to organic certification standards.

European research in recent years has provided winegrowers with various soil management solutions with lower fuel consumption and less aggressive with the soil and the environment (Dobrei et al., 2015). Also, there are currently effective alternatives for replacing the conventional fertilizers and classic schemes for diseases and pests control, to can obtain quantitative and qualitative grape production compared to conventional viticulture, in more environmentally friendly conditions (Merot et al., 2020). However, these new solutions must be chosen carefully, according to each variety particularities, the pedo-climatic resources of each grape-growing area and the technical and financial possibilities of each vineyard (Dobrei et al., 2016).

To address current climatic, socio-economic, and environmental changes, farmers must modify their cropping systems to reduce environmental impacts while ensuring feasibility and profitability at farm level (Wery and Langeveld 2010). For some farms, simple adjustments, such as modifying pesticide and fertilizer doses, can suffice to cope with the changing context; however, in most cases more significant modifications in farm structure, farmland organization, and crop management may be necessary (Darnhofer et al. 2005).

Experimental results show that synthetic chemical-based crop protection can be replaced by more environmentally friendly but less effective ingredients (bio-control) and increased prevention of pest recurrence (e.g., in vineyards, Lafond et al. 2013). These measures require more information on the plant and disease status at field level and a deeper understanding of how the various components of the cropping system function to appropriately adjust interventions (Léger and Naud 2009; Barzman et al. 2015). In turn, this will likely lead to an increase in complexity of the cropping system.

Sources

Sales, L.R.; Rigobelo, E.C. The Role of Bacillus sp. in Reducing Chemical Inputs for Sustainable Crop Production. Agronomy 202414, 2723. https://doi.org/10.3390/agronomy14112723

Tziolas, E.; Karampatea, A.; Karapatzak, E.; Banias, G.F. Balancing Efficiency and Environmental Impacts in Greek Viticultural Management Systems: An Integrated Life Cycle and Data Envelopment Approach. Sustainability 202416, 9043. https://doi.org/10.3390/su16209043

Merot, A., Wery, J. Converting to organic viticulture increases cropping system structure and management complexity. Agron. Sustain. Dev. 37, 19 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13593-017-0427-9

OIV https://www.oiv.int/organic-viticulture-is-gaining-terrain.

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