PROTECT
Forgotten Corners
Robert Holdaway
Down the pathway of regenerative viticulture SOPHIE PREECE
ROBERT HOLDAWAY sees science at work when he harvests a salad for dinner, plucking rocket, spinach and beetroot leaves from his Lower Wairau Vineyards. He sees a burgeoning above and below-ground biological community when diverse cover crops flourish down the grape rows, flower heads blazing above the green. And he sees a healthy ecology when driving a mule down a vineyard row becomes a “hazardous” occupation, with the bonnet splattered with insect diversity, from aphids to ladybird larvae. Measuring an ecosystem via tasty salads, pretty flowers and hit-and-run insects seems imprecise. But Robert - who has a PhD in forest ecology from Cambridge University and spent eight years as an ecosystem ecologist at Manaaki Whenua Landcare Research – says such biodiversity is about making the vineyard “hum”, or function properly. “It’s about getting biodiversity back into the vineyard – plants, insects, fungi, bacteria,” he says. “And if you can get the plants feeding the soil life, the soil life will feed the plants and help protect them from disease… you get functional complementarity.” Each plant supports a different niche of insects and micro-organisms, “and you get the predatorprey relationship, and all that balancing that nature does”. Robert describes himself as an ideas guy, having returned to Lowlands Wines three years ago, when he became disillusioned by the lack of transfer from science to action. “The pure science was out there telling you what to do and it supports the idea that plant diversity and biologically active soil are critical for plant health and ecosystem function.” So he joined his brother Richard, who had finished his engineering degree in 2003 and returned to Marlborough to help expand and develop the family business. If Robert is the ideas, then Richard is the engine. He says regenerative agriculture is easy to say and hard to do, but he was already heading in that direction when Robert returned. Now, they use Robert’s science and Richard’s nous to plant abundantly diverse cover crops, feed the soil biology, implement biological spray programmes, and cut fungicides and herbicide use, in order to seek that utopian “hum”. Next season, Lowlands Wines is not planning to use any insecticides at all. “Our cover crops mean we hopefully
22 / Winepress September 2020
have enough beneficials present, and there are biological controls we can turn to if needed,” says Robert. The brothers are also trying to cut back on fungicides, so in the last growing season ran a trial with no chemical canopy sprays beyond an early-season oil, using a biological programme instead. That meant no fungicides - organic or chemical no sulphur and no copper, “in an attempt to pull out all the inputs that are killing the good biology”, says Robert. In the end a touch of powdery mildew led to a single fungicide application across most of the trial block, then a return to the biological programme. “That’s one instead of 14,” says Robert. “We were able to do that because we are not organic. So instead of going in with soaps and sulphurs and nuking it, we were able to do one targeted powdery spray, which we thought was better for the overall ecosystem.” The results were compelling, and next season half of Lowland’s 155 hectares of Sauvignon Blanc vineyards will be included in the biological trial, “with the caveat that we will monitor the heck out of it, and if we do get some we will do that one fungicide”, says Robert. He and Richard are adamant that the flexible use of inputs is a key advantage of regenerative viticulture. In the past, companies have been either organic or conventional, says Richard. “We are going the third way.” That’s why it shouldn’t be certified, he adds. “The whole point is that the toolbox is wide open, and holistic management means you use whatever tools you need to do the best thing for the whole”. When people ask Robert to explain regenerative viticulture, he calls it a mentality, not a set of practices. Decision making becomes about putting the biology and the ecosystem first, because “if we get that thriving, the rest will follow”. That means not asking “how do I kill this problem organism?” but “how can I enhance the environment so that
