2 minute read
EcoVineyards goes national
Sustainability
EcoVineyards, a program that aims to promote environmental stewardship and agroecological best management practices in vineyards, spent last month launching in winegrowing regions across Australia. Harrison Davies joined EcoVineyards program manager and Retallack Viticulture managing director, Dr Mary Retallack, to see how the launch was going.
The national EcoVineyards program is funded by Wine Australia and run by Retallack Viticulture Pty Ltd. It aims to educate winegrape growers about building functional ecosystems in their vineyards. These ecosystems include native insectary plants which help to support populations of arthropod predators, which contribute towards biocontrol of vineyard insect pests and may ultimately lead to reduced input costs and use of chemicals. The program has seen success in South Australia and over the month of November saw its launch nationally. Program manager Dr Mary Retallack said she was eager to share the existing South Australian model with a broader audience in new winegrowing regions after having received “a tremendous amount of interest from growers interstate”. “The response has been overwhelmingly positive with lots of engagement and interaction from growers.” The national launch kicked off in Orange in mid-October and Dr Retallack, as well as soil health researcher Dr Mary Cole, have since hosted a series of field days and seminars exploring the benefits of grapegrowing with an ecological focus. They held events in the Clare Valley, Langhorne Creek and the Adelaide Hills in in early November and later hosted events in New South Wales, Victoria and Western Australia throughout the rest of the month. “There was lots of interaction and practical tips for growers about transitioning from the use of synthetic fertilisers and making existing nutrients plant available,” Dr Retallack said. “We have been capturing the responses from growers on our social media platforms Facebook and Instagram via the @EcoVineyards handle and the response so far has been fantastic. “I am excited about the capacity to broaden our reach to new winegrowing regions and to keep expanding our capacity to provide tailored information to winegrowers throughout Australia.” Dr Retallack said that helping growers find ways to be more sustainable was key for the future of the industry and she hoped the program would be a platform for the industry to move forward. “We are sharing information with winegrowers about how to work smarter rather than harder and break the cycle of intervention to achieve longer term solutions. We are also working with the intelligence of nature rather than against it,” she said. “The underlying principles of agroecology work in harmony with nature and are complementary to achieving positive outcomes in the vineyard. The living components of soil underpins soil health and our capacity to grow healthy grapevines, this leads to healthy production systems and supports greater resilience. “Our focus areas are functional biodiversity, ground cover, including cover crops, and soil health; there is something for everyone. “We provide growers with new information so they can make decisions that are best for their property and we are not prescriptive, so growers don’t need to be farming in a certain way to take the next steps towards practical change.”
EcoVineyards program manager Dr Mary Retallack
Dr Mary Retallack
Dr Mary Cole addresses growers at the Langhorne Creek launch of EcoVineyards
