ON-FARM TRENDS

Various production trends are shaping the wine industry, with most of these aimed at increasing the environmental and financial sustainability of farms.

Conrad Schutte, Vinpro consultation services manager, says that farmers in general are putting more time and effort into planning vineyards and matching the right varieties, rootstocks and production systems with the right terroirs.

The implementation of new technologies is also significantly improving decision- making.

“As with any other product, there is a growing awareness that mistakes at the planning stage are far easier and cheaper to fix than mistakes once you are in production, and even more so once the product reaches the consumer,” says Schutte.

Climate resilience is also becoming increasingly important, starting with the choice of rootstocks and clones that are more drought-tolerant, to the use of cover crops and mulches to improve the health and water- holding capacity of the soil, and the use of new technologies to improve irrigation efficiencies.

Schutte points out that scientists last season managed to use half the amount of water to produce wine of the same quality as producers in one region, with the wine grapes also being harvested one week earlier than those of the producers.

In addition, there is a shift towards a reduction in the use of herbicides and fungicides, coinciding with a shift to biological and regenerative farming practices. Schutte says that some farmers, for example, are reverting to mechanical practices and using animals in winter and early spring to control weeds.

The combination of precision agriculture technologies with data learning to predict disease outbreaks is also taking the guesswork out of when fungicides should be applied, and resulting in more efficient applications.