EcoVineyards program manager Dr Mary Retallack

EcoVineyards, a program that aims to promote environmental stewardship and agroecological best management practices in vineyards, is spending the month of November launching in winegrowing regions across Australia. Harrison Davies joined EcoVineyards program manager and Retallack Viticulture managing director, Dr Mary Retallack, to see how the launch was going.

The national EcoVineyards program is funded via Wine Australia and run Retallack Viticulture Pty Ltd. It and aims to educate winegrape growers about ways to enhance functional ecosystems in their vineyards.

These ecosystems include native insectary plants which help to support populations of arthropod predators, which contribute towards biocontrol of vineyard insect pests and may ultimately lead to reduced input costs and the use of chemicals.

The existing program has seen success in South Australia and over the month of November saw its launch nationally.

Program manager Dr Mary Retallack said she was eager to share the existing South Australian model with a broader audience and new wine growing regions.

“We have had a tremendous amount of interest from growers interstate and we are looking forward to meeting everyone in person as we launch in each participating region throughout November 2022,” Dr Retallack said.

“The response has been overwhelmingly positive with lots of engagement and interaction from growers.”

The launch began in Orange in mid-October and Retallack, as well as soil health researcher Dr Mary Cole, have been hosting field days and seminars exploring the benefits of grapegrowing with an ecological focus.

They held events in Clare Valley, Langhorne Creek and the Adelaide Hills in early November and are hosting more events in New South Wales, Victoria and Western Australia throughout the rest of the month.

“There was lots of interaction and practical tips for growers about transitioning from the use of synthetic fertilisers and making existing nutrients plant available,” Dr Retallack said.

“We visited Clare Valley, Adelaide Hills and Langhorne Creek in early November and will be in the Hunter Valley, Yarra Valley, Mornington Peninsula and Margaret River in November. We have been capturing the responses from growers on our social media platforms Facebook and Instagram via the @EcoVineyards handle and the response so far has been fantastic.

“I am excited about the capacity to broaden our reach to new wine growing regions and to keep expanding our capacity to provide tailored information to wine growers throughout Australia.”

Retallack said that helping growers find ways to be more sustainable was key for the future of the industry and she hoped the program would be a platform for the industry to move forward.

“We are sharing information with wine growers about how to work smarter rather than harder and break the cycle of intervention to achieve longer term solutions. We are also working with the intelligence of nature rather than against it,” she said.

“The underlying principles of agroecology work in harmony with nature and are complementary to achieving positive outcomes in the vineyard. The living components of soil underpins soil health and our capacity to grow healthy grapevines, this leads to healthy production systems and supports greater resilience.

“Our focus areas are functional biodiversity, ground covers (including cover crops) and soil health, there is something for everyone. We provide growers with new information so they can make decisions that are best for their property and we are not prescriptive, so growers don’t need to be farming in a certain way to take the next steps towards practice change.”

Are you a Daily Wine News subscriber? If not, click here to join our mailing list. It’s free!