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Why the need to calculate growing degree days in vineyard?
Grapevine is a plant of warm climate: it requires a sufficient amount of heat for growth. As its development is strongly influenced by daily temperature, grape growers often use weather-based indicators to predict vine growth stages such as bloom, veraison, and maturity. The growing degree day calculator is one of the most known tools to […]
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Cover cropping: alternative to herbicide use in the vineyard
In viticulture, cover cropping refers to crop planting between and under the rows of vines, in order to improve the management of the vineyard. Cover cropping is no new invention, even though lately with the increased interest in organic and sustainable viticulture, there is a lot of buzz about that topic. Cover crops have been […]
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Impact of wine production life cycle on the environment
Agriculture has a big influence on the environment, it contributes to climate change and global warming. With the use of fertilizers, pesticides, soil, land, water, and energy it’s responsible for approximately 20% of all greenhouse gas emissions. And wine production is no exception, the process of growing grapes and transforming it into wine, contributes to […]
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Climate changes and wine production, part 2
In the first part of the article, we wrote about effects of climate changes and how they affect viticulture industry, therefore, winegrowers. Now we are going to take a closer look at some adaptation techniques which can grape growers and winemakers consider when adapting to climate changes.
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Climate changes and wine production, part 1
Climate change has become a real issue in the past decades. Since the beginning of the 20. century the average global temperature has risen and the same goes for the concentration of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere. Mostly due to increase of fossil fuels burning. If this will continue at the same pace, scientists […]
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Phomopsis cane & leaf spot (Phomopsis viticola)
Phomopsis cane and leaf spot is a grape fungal disease caused by fungi Phomopsis viticola. In the past, the diseas was known under the name »dead-arm«, but in 1976, researchers have found out that these are actually two different diseases that often occur simultaneously (Phomopsis cane&leaf spot and Eutypa dieback). Phomopsis cane and leaf spot […]
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Gray mold of grape (Botrytis cinerea Pers.)
Gray mold of grape, also known as Botrytis bunch rot, is a fungal disease caused by the fungus Botrytis cinerea. It’s one of the most important diseases of grapes in the world, which can cause serious losses in grape yields. The fungus can occur anytime during the growing season, but most commonly occurs near the […]
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Managing powdery mildew – organic way
Vine diseases don’t care if you treat your vineyard in the normal or organic way. The only thing you can be sure about is, that you will have them no matter what. While conventional growers fight diseases with synthetic fungicides, organic growers have to search for more nature friendly solutions.
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French organic wines
Organic production is rapidly growing over the past few years, largely due to the consumer demands for high quality food. Not only production of organic food but also production of wine made from organically grown grapes is rising. This trend has already expanded in the world capital of wine production Bordeaux, France. There are several […]
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Viticulture: Why going organic?
Probably there is no one, at least in the “western world”, who wouldn’t have heard something about the organic food. Newspapers and magazines are full of organic food – their positive effects on human health, andon the environment, etc. Also Social Media is full of stories of people going “green”; people are sharing photos of […]
