Jordan Lonborg: How to scale a regenerative approach as a vineyard consultant

1. Embrace an open mindset.
The first conversations are all about mindset, that’s where it all begins – let go of your vision of what a vineyard should look like.

2. Biodiversity is key.
You want your vineyard to have as many plant and animal species as possible; insects, birds, plants, trees, and more.

3. Familiarise yourself with the historical farming practices of the site.
If inputs, fungicides and herbicides have been used, move the vineyard away from them. Providing other avenues now becomes an important part of the conversation between vineyard consultant and the vineyard team.

4. Establish the vineyard’s soil baseline and embed a data-driven approach.
On every visit to the site you want to be out in the blocks with your spade. Establish a data-driven style of farming and learn as much as you can about the soil context; you need to know what you’re working with. Without this baseline, you can be doing things on the vineyard, such as planting cover crop mixes, only to find out that what you’re doing is actually incompatible with the context you have. Learn more about how Sectormentor can help you to establish a soil baseline.

1. Develop a soil sampling mindset.
Begin by sampling non-cropped, untouched areas of the property to figure out the soil’s potential. Jordan called this a vineyard’s ‘north star’. This location could be at the edge of some woodlands, or at least where you know a tractor hasn’t been before; the location must be a natural setting with no human influence. This ‘north star’ is very important, it can tell you everything you need to know about the soil capabilities within your specific context. Interestingly, from Jordan’s experience, you can improve upon a land’s health even beyond your ‘north star’ from within the farm setting. Learn more about how Sectormentor can help you to establish a soil baseline.

2. Do everything you can to maximise biodiversity on every part of the vineyard.
Jordan recommends very diverse cover crop mixes and creating perennial habitats for insects to be protected and thrive.

3. There is a place for foliars and experimenting with inputs.
The soil at Tablas Creek was healthy and full of nutrients, but there were still times where the vines were struggling; this left Jordan wondering where the missing link was. He was very set on the idea of achieving a ‘closed loop system’, but he failed to see that vines don’t naturally have a symbiotic partnership with the types of soil fungi that exist ‘naturally’ in Californian soils as they are not native themselves. This is when Jordan realised that they needed to bring products on-site to boost the vines’ relationship with the biology in the soil; bringing organic foliars (particularly AEA products) into the system has been a game-changer for Jordan! 

Top tip: Jordan’s advice is to always be open-minded to learning more about your soil system – the learning never stops!

1. Know your soil first.
Jordan advises that you need to build a thorough understanding of how your soil is working before implementing regenerative techniques such as animal grazing or no-till. See these techniques as end goals, with a number steps to be taken beforehand. 

2. Think carefully about carrying capacity and grazing times.
These two factors are very important when learning how to implement grazing; Jordan was consulting at a vineyard that decided to implement sheep grazing and brought 300 sheep on-site without a plan to graze rotationally. On Jordan’s next visit, a few days later, he found it very difficult to get his spade into the ground due to the soil compaction caused by the animals grazing in one area for too long. The worms and soil macrobiology had also been pushed into the top inch of soil due to the need for oxygen. When testing the paddock next door, which hadn’t been grazed yet, Jordan easily slid the spade into the ground, and saw all the indicators of a healthy soil profile. Jordan’s lesson from this experience was how quickly things can go wrong when decisions aren’t based on your soil data.