Regenerative Viticulture Series #3
The Practicalities of Regenerative Viticulture with Dan Rinke and Luke Spalding
Dan Rinke consults vineyards, orchards, wineries and cideries looking for support in converting to regenerative farming and low intervention wine making, with Art+Science+Cider+Wine Agronomy. His winegrowing career began with university studies in viticulture and plant science. After working at several vineyards in California, Dan took the position as Winegrower (manager/winemaker) at Johan Vineyards, an 88-acre certified organic/biodynamic, dry farmed, and minimally tilled vineyard/winery in Oregon. Dan speaks and consults internationally about implementing regenerative approaches to improve the ecology and profitability of the vineyard.
In this session, Dan is in conversation with Luke Spalding, manager of the beautiful Everflyht Vineyard in Sussex. Luke and Dan cover a real range of topics, with a focus on more on-the-ground implementation of regenerative viticulture methods. They dig in to the practicalities of alternative inputs, building habitats for your ecosystem cleansers with ramial woodchip piles, learning from sap analyses, micro-nutrients, and wood chip applications. We learn about implementing no-till in a vineyard, cover crop mixes, and the liquid carbon pathway to name a few! Dan also shares his key tools for a fully organic and biodynamic approach and some of the theory behind why those approaches work. Watch below to learn from Luke and Dan’s fascinating conversation.
An audience member did also ask a question about iron deficiency in their soils and the answer to this wasn’t recorded – as a quick summary Dan and Luke spoke about working with biology in a number of different ways: using humic substances to open up the iron availability; potentially encouraging certain plants or ‘weeds’ that mobilise iron; potentially using sheep to bring iron into the system; and trying to encourage microorganisms that mobilise iron. There was also suggestion of considering what is blocking the iron and managing for that as well.
References from Dan & Luke’s talk
- Mycorrhizal Planet – How Symbiotic Fungi Work with Roots to Support Plant Health and Build Soil Fertility – by Michael Phillips
- Weeds and What They Tell Us – by Ehrenfried E. Pfeiffer