March 2021

RegenBen is an agronomist, turned farmer, turned regenerative agriculture obsessive! Ben uses biological, peer-reviewed methods to produce low intervention crops, with a clear focus on diversity and experimentation. He is keen to put fun back into farming, and share his learnings as he goes. Ben is BASIS & FACTS certified – it was through doing his Nuffield Scholarship in 2016 that he had his eureka moment, realising regenerative agriculture is a crucially different way of understanding farming.

This conversation with Ben focuses on experiments on his plot of vines, and successes he’s had with regenerative methods across his whole farm. We learn about why Ben identifies ‘regenerative’ farming as a departure from both organic and conventional thinking. He talks about the importance of diversity in regenerative systems, why everything comes back to soil health, under-vine companion cropping, how to address compacted soils and the role of micronutrients in producing quality crops. We learn why, when, and how to use sap analysis, and what to look for in your results. A real range of topics were covered in this session, so there should be learnings for all levels of people interested in regenerative viticulture – from seasoned winegrowers to curious beginners!

Nicole Masters is an internationally renowned agroecologist. Her book For the Love of Soil is exceptional, filled with good stories and very practical tools for taking a more regenerative approach. Nicole has also produced an online learning course, Soil Health Foundations, which is an excellent overview of understanding and building soil health for your situation. Nicole is director of Integrity Soils – a team of regenerative coaches who work with individual producers as well as delivering training for different organisations and advisors on building healthy soils and regenerative systems. 

This conversation with Nicole focuses on soil health as the root to a healthy vineyard. In particular we discuss the best ways to deal with compaction, how Nicole approaches disease and pest burdens, learning from weeds, and the power of doing simple tests in field to better understand what is happening. Nicole shares a hugely inspiring case study of a vineyard she worked with where a ‘soils first’ approach built profits, encouraged thriving soil life and built biodiversity above ground (find the link to this case study below the video). She shares some specifics in dealing with fungal disease, trialling alternative inputs, and using sap meters to guage the health of your plants – well worth a watch!

Nicole already uses our Soilmentor app to support her team when they are out surveying the situation at different producers they work with. We have included the Soilmentor functionality within Sectormentor to provide a comprehensive regenerative viticulture tool. We are working together with Nicole and her team at Integrity Soils to develop a new addition to this, the Regen Platform, which will help you understand what the different soil and plant test results mean and next questions or ideas you might want to explore.

References from Nicole’s session

• Case Study: Kokako Vineyard and slides are here – Hawkes Bay, New Zealand – @kokakofarms on Instagram
• Mineral Nutrition and Plant Disease – Don Huber
• Sap Test Interpretation Chart – Integrity Soils