In recent years British wine is starting to claim international recognition, winning awards for being of the highest quality. With changing climate and improved understanding of how to produce the highest quality product under our conditions, viticulture is one of the fastest growing crop sectors in British agriculture. This growth in area under vine production, and desire to produce a high-quality product, has been combined with the industries desire to produce a more sustainable product.
Sustainable viticulture is about environmentally responsible practices to minimise the ecological footprint of wine production. It should not about organic production or no input vine growing, sustainable viticulture is about growing grape vines to produce wine locally with minimal effect on the surrounding environment. Improving the sustainability of wine production is an option to all growers and wineries, and sustainability should not be confused with organic and biodynamic farming practices or seen as something not compatible with large-scale producer.
There are many areas of vine growing which can be targeted to improve sustainability:
Maintaining and improving soil health: Micro-organism biodiversity ca be a measure of the health of soil, with more diverse and heavily populated soils considered healthier. Using growing practices, or in the case of vines where little soil disturbance occurs after planting, use of products which disrupt soil microbial biodiversity are kept to a minimum. One are which can be addressed is fertiliser use, synthetic mineral fertilisers often have high salt levels which can impact microbial populations. Traditional organic fertilisers can have lower salt levels but are slower acting, so there is a delay between application and the benefit to the plant. Vertiliser fertilisers offer a solution to this issue, being low salt organic liquid fertilisers with fast plant uptake. Their controllable NPK and micro-nutrient levels also means there are different NPK ratios if needed for different parts of the grapevine growing cycle.
Minimise and optimise pesticide inputs: Pest monitoring systems such as pheromone traps and SWD (Spotted Wing Drosophila) traps and attractant allow better decision support to determine when an action threshold is reached for a specific pest insect species.
Conserve the vineyard environment and promote biodiversity: When an action threshold is reached and a treatment is required to target a specific pest insect, the more target-specific the treatment is the less impact it will have on the surrounding environment. Delfin is one example of a target specific insecticide, only controlling Lepidopteran caterpillar pests.
Reduce vineyard carbon footprint: When deciding which inputs are required to grow healthy vines, the footprint associated with those imputs will impact the overall footprint of the wine at the end of the process. Manufacturing a range of NPK fertilizers (Vertilizer) and elemental sulphur fertilisers (Sulphur Biotic) made from waste materials allows a vineyard to select inputs they are already familiar with, only from a more sustainable source.
Andermatt is also committed to improving its sustainability and lowering its carbon footprint, not only on individual products, but the company as a whole. As a global manufacturer and producer of biological products, we understand that our products have a role to play in supporting more sustainable British grape growing and and wine making. Embedded within our more than 500 team members across more than 20 companies is the belief that we have technologies which can help improve the sustainability of food and drink production. We started our Net Zero journey in 2023, and whilst this will look at the Andermatt Group overall, we will continue to develop and support more sustainable products for British vineyards to access as they travel their journeys.
Andermatt products can help produce more sustainable grape yields through every part of the vine growing cycle. Most often replacing currently used or known products with similar, but more sustainable options.
- Vine planting:
Soil-living beneficial bacteria to not only help develop roots of newly planted vines, but to also help the developing root system extract more nutrition from the soil. RhizoVital® C5 contains the natural beneficial bacteria Bacillus atropheus which is able to mobilise nutrients in the soil into forms more easily accessible for the vines to take up.
- Early growth:
Newly planted and young vines can be protected from rabbit, hare and deer grazing with petroleum plastic-free tree guards.
- Vegetative growth:
As the plants grow, our customisable clear liquid organic fertilisers can be applied as either foliar sprays of soil drenches to provide the growing vines with the N, P, K and micro-nutrients they require. Vertilizer® offers a range of different NPK ratio liquid fertilisers. Whilst being approved for organic production, these are not standard dark liquid organic fertilizers, and are designed to compete with the performance of synthetic manufactured fertilisers. Clearly different, these customisable liquid fertilizers are derived from a plant waste stream and are therefore more sustainable than synthetically manufactured NPK fertilisers.
- Pollination:
When the vines produce flowers, many sites will compliment natural pollination with the introduction of honeybee. Bee hives situated around the vineyard can improve pollination rate and fruit set. An often unseen industry supported by our sustainable products is bee farming, the commercial farmers of bees who will supply their bees as a pollination service and in return collect the honey produced from the collected pollen. Honey bees are affected by a parasitic mite called Varroa destructor. Andermatt supply a number of varroa control veterinary medicines made from naturally derived substances to help beekeepers keep healthy and productive hives.
- Pest insect monitoring:
When the vines have grown to the stage of starting to produce grapes for harvest, pest control becomes an issue. The most sustainable way to manage this is to only take action when it is needed, when the pest is present only at a level which is going to cause economic harm to the crop. To achieve this pest insect monitoring with baited traps is essential. Regular checking of species specific traps alerts a grower to when action is (or is not) required. Key caterpillar pest insects of UK vines are Epiphyas postvittana (light brown apple moth, LBAM) and Eupoecilia ambiguella (vine moth) and the fly Drosophila suzukii (spotted wing drosophila, SWD)
- Pest insect control
Once an action threshold is reached and a treatment is required to prevent economical damage to the vines and future crop, the more target specific the product used the less impact it will have on the surrounding environment and non-target organisms. Delfin® is a Lepidoperta specific biological insecticide, ideal for use against Epiphyas postvittana (LBAM, Light Brown Apple Moth), Eupoecilia ambiguella (Vine moth), Lobesia botrana (grape berry moth) or any other lepidopteran pest of grapevines.
This concept of similar, but more sustainable means our products are easy to adopt for every and any vineyard looking to improve their sustainability with minimal impact on current practices.