How would we make our vineyard more "green" (environmental)?

Question

What is some ideas that we could practice to make our vineyard more environmentally friendly, and/or sustainable?

We are already a carboNZero certified organisation, but wondering what we can do to improve more.

Answer 1

Green means many things to many people. Sustainable has some more specific ideas. Check out the permaculture concept. Ask yourself if your vineyard could continue to do what you do now one hundred years from now without changing the quality of the soil or local ecology. Some more practical implementations:

• compost clippings and other high nitrogen organic matter (primarily manure) to make methane to run your tractors
• ensure that any runoff from the fields goes into holding pools for filtration

• examine all the "inputs" and "outputs" to your vineyard. Wooden stakes for vine support, bottles, fertilizer, gasoline for tractors, electricity for presses, fungicides enter your system and wine in bottles and waste leaves the system.

• Could you supply your own stakes with coppiced shrubs/trees?

• Could you reduce pesticide use by plantings that act as a home for beneficial predators?
• Could you make your own energy with solar panels or wind power?
• Can you top dress your fields with your own or locally derived compost?

Answer 2

Here in Italy, and even in France, we plant a rose bush at the beginning of each row.

Roses are subject to the same diseases and serve as marker indicators of any health problem. If that can be useful.