Special vine care

After having tested an “organic” approach, and then a biodynamic technique for eight years; we finally shifted for another technique, which truly preserves the environment : durable agriculture.

We strongly believe a few things are worth recalling concerning “organic” to agriculture : indeed, a regular use of copper to protect a vineyard generates insoluble problems. Today, it is proven and indisputable that copper is extremely harmful for the environment: it is a heavy metal that nothing can absorb, it concentrates in the soil after each treatment and can wind up making the soil totally sterile.

Later, it goes deep into the subsoil and pollutes groundwater ; as was seen in Germany, some areas totally forbade the use of copper when many wells turned out polluted. As for Switzerland, it has limited authorized amounts to such an extent that it's nearly impossible to use copper at any time of year !

From now on, we have decided to apply our own methods, based on our experience and are willed to preserve the environment, by introducing to recent concepts that considerably reduce damageable interventions.

Reasoned pest control allows us to treat vines at the opportune moment only. This control calls for careful observation of the vines, literally with a magnifying lens, thus almost halving treatment. This treatment is only carried out with up products that are quickly biodegradable for the action of sun and microorganisms in the soil.
Integrated pest control is a much more complex technique, which aims at using the ecosystem without man-made intervention. The equilibrium is hence naturally found between parasites and predators. Installing natural shelters for auxiliary insects is one of the measures applied in this technique. During our campaigns against the grape-worm, one of the most harmful parasites for the crops, we apply two methods :

a) Either we use a bacterium that only destroys this parasite, a natural bacterium, harmless for the environment.

b) Or we use sexual confusion which consists in placing odorant capsules that diffuse the pheromones of the female Eudemis butterfly (whose caterpillars are attracted to grapes). These phéromones [S2]then saturate the air around the vines, the males are therefore fooled, thinking they will found scores of females, fertilizing the odorant area without ever inseminating the real females : the plague of the grape-worm can almost be eliminated entirely. The main drawback of this method is its cost, four to five times the cost of a chemical treatment.