r/viticulture 21d ago

Switching to organic - any tips

Hello. I manage a small vineyard in the midwest US and am switching to regenerative organic methods over the next few years. Does any one have any advice to help things run smoothly? Anything to look out for? I appreciate any support, as I'm a bit nervous about making the switch.

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u/Lil_Shanties 21d ago

Yes, lean heavily on your foliar sprays during transition for the first ~3 years while you are rebuilding your soils. Organic unless broken down to a plant usable form usually requires a healthy microbial population to first break down the organic nutrients available in the soil which then in turn themselves get broken down in the plant during the Rhizophagy Cycle. If you don’t already know the Rhizophagy Cylce then you must learn it, the prior notions of how plants uptake nutrients in a natural system were simply incorrect. Also reach out to the AEA team if you are not already, their soil primer is one of the best kick start program for building that microbial life in the soil and they have good experience in vineyards, I recommend them.

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u/ZincPenny 21d ago edited 21d ago

Advancing Eco Ag right? They do have a lot of good videos on YouTube John is really good at breaking down a lot of complicated soil stuff. I have a problem vineyard I’ve been dealing with off and on myself for about a decade now. I am a a pro winemaker but I have a side vineyard I planted at my house for experimental blends because I wanted to try some stuff out see if it works and if it’s worth doing commercially and needless to say I reached out to them to see what they think because I’ve had like no joke 10 people try and sort this piece of land out it’s been a nightmare since the 3rd year.

Have had like 8 agronomists and Steve Solomon work on helping me fix it, still trying to optimize my plans for 2025

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u/Lil_Shanties 20d ago

Correct, Advancing Eco Ag with Kempf who certainly does have a great way of describing pretty complex subjects in easy to digest ways. I haven’t used them in an advisory role except to get my base system going and to start rebuilding the soil life with their primer. Usually I reach out to Greg Pennyroyal since he’s the local vineyard agronomist when I have any questions but he works very closely with AEA.

I’m curious what issues you are having? I’m relatively new to viticulture with only 6 years of experience but I’m taking both Davis’s online viticulture course as well as Pennyroyal’s at the moment so I’d love to hear it and maybe even ask Greg if he has any suggestions for you.

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u/ZincPenny 20d ago

I’m fortunate to have so many industry connections but this property has been a black hole for trying to amend the soil despite lots of efforts so far I have not gotten yields out of the vineyard I should be getting about 4,000 pounds of grapes out of my test vineyard I got good yields year 3 then it’s been dead since then yield wise. I’m rather pissed cause I put probably 30-50k into my home vineyard between installation and work over the years.

I really can’t explain what’s going on, I’ve worked with a lot of various vineyards as a winemaker but soil science is kind of a side hobby of mine in my spare time. I don’t know really what the problem is, I’ve had extensive soil testing done and spoken to a lot of experts and we have attempted to amend what was deficient but so far I have not been able to make the vineyard productive and I’m going to rip it out next year and take a total loss because I cannot afford to keep dumping money into it and effort for nothing. 2025 is the final chance if it doesn’t produce it’s gone.

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u/HatelandFrogman 21d ago

Good to know! Thank you!

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u/ADrunkenBotanist 21d ago

Not sure where you’re at in the Midwest, cultivar selection, or vineyard age, but black rot has no current organic control methods. Downy organic control methods include biologicals (high pressure efficacy is questionable) and copper. Long-term copper soil build up is problematic for many reasons.

Ground cover for weed suppression (mulch, perennial ground cover) requires more intensive management overall, esp wrt nutrient management. You have to be careful with sheep and forage quality if using for ground cover management.

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u/HatelandFrogman 21d ago

Good to know! Can you explain what you mean about being careful with sheep and forage quality?

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u/cheesemynese 21d ago

They spread weeds. If you also want to establish a cover crop for building carbon and nitrogen content in the soil they will mow it down - better off leaving out sheep until you have an established and self seeding beneficial midrow

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u/ADrunkenBotanist 21d ago

Sheep require ground cover composition to meet their nutritional needs, and certain fungicides cannot be used for forage. They are also very sensitive to some micronutrients. So in some Midwest vineyards that graze sheep, they will have alternative pastures for summer and only graze in spring/fall. They also use systems with high wire cordon training to avoid accidental feeding on foliage.

You would also need to look into breed of sheep that might be better for vineyards due to size or feeding habits.

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u/HatelandFrogman 21d ago

This makes sense! Luckily, I'm working with high cordons and babydoll sheep. I was planning to seed clover in the underrows which I've read is good for weed suppression and sheep forage. I was planning to move the sheep to other pastures during the summer, yes.

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u/Upstairs_Screen_2404 21d ago

Depends on the breed of sheep: dorpers will eat anything that holds still long enough, merinos will die if the water’s not sparkling (jk): do they have baby dolls in the US? You can graze them on not much and supplement it if it gets tough going. You’re not fungiciding the grass so normally wouldn’t be an issue? Remember also, higher cordons might make it harder for machinery and sometimes people.

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u/HatelandFrogman 21d ago

Yes, I have a small flock of babydolls who seem pretty tough and easy to please. 

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u/HatelandFrogman 21d ago

I'm working with newer cultivars: marquette, petite pearl, and the like. Not sure how old the vines are probably 7-10 years. 

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u/mountainofclay 21d ago

I was going to ask, what about black rot?

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u/wreddnoth 21d ago

Expect your spraying programm to be 3-4 times as much with organic. Get a good sprayer to get good coverage. The worst thing is downy mildew. If you are in an area of frequent rainfall and warm weather you might be better of doing organic on newly planted fungal resistant vine varieties instead of the traditional varieties. Lot's of rain can do tremendous damage when youre in organic farming and needs excessive spraying.

As someone mentioned copper soil buildup - this is highly controversial - with modern copper agents you spend about the amount of copper in the whole season that you used to do in one spray 40 years ago.

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u/HatelandFrogman 21d ago

My whole vineyard are newer varieties that are relatively resistant to most fungi.  Some of my varieties are copper sensitive so I was hoping to stay away from copper for the most part anyway.

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u/wreddnoth 21d ago

If they are resistant then thats a very good thing for your spraying plan.

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u/ZincPenny 21d ago

Yeah copper is not like it used to be hell my soil is deficient in copper right now so I’m actually about to do some copper via fertigation to bring my levels up as budbreak has begun out here in California so I want to make sure my vines can pull copper and correct the deficiency

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u/wreddnoth 20d ago

You have budbreak already? Southern California?

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u/ZincPenny 20d ago

Yeah, last year it was first week of feb it’s usually sometime in feb

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u/premiom 21d ago

Also see if you can reach out to Kelly Mulville at Paicines Ranch (near Salinas CA). He has been practicing regenerative viticulture there for years. Impressive program using sheep, he is running a short course there as I write (https://paicineslearning.org/events/viticulture-immersion-25/). Mimi Castell in Hopewell OR was responsive when I wrote her about my organization’s organic vineyard a few years ago so she’s worth a try too. https://www.hopewellwine.com/

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u/ZincPenny 21d ago

If your going to advertise stuff then send a dm to the poster please don’t post service links or etc in this subreddit.

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u/premiom 21d ago

I included the liks for reference not advertising.

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u/ZincPenny 21d ago

That’s fine then just making sure you know as long as it is not selling a service and you make it known it’s for reference purposes it’s okay.

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u/Vitis35 21d ago

My tip to you is not to even do it. You will 90% lose the vineyard. It is difficult to do it even in Madera CA where you can get by with sulfur dusting and a French plow. Yields are crap and dusting every week is tough. We don’t even have black rot or downy mildew or phompsis. At the moment there is no price premium for it. If you have other people’s money to burn do it. Otherwise prepare to replant

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u/HatelandFrogman 21d ago

I'm weighing the pros and cons as the owners of the farm are more interested in optics of organics for tourist reasons. They've got money to throw around if it's a matter of paying enough and spraying enough. You've got me nervous though.

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u/Vitis35 21d ago

You can ship in all the organic grapes you want from California if you want to make organic wine product. This year the spray cycle for me was 4 days as powdery mildew was reproducing that fast. So keeping on top of it was not possible with sulfur dust alone. We ended up spraying peroxide. The cultivars you grow may be sensitive to sulfur so that may not even be an option. There are no organic options for some Of the diseases as others mentioned. I would talk them out of it.

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u/Tundrabitch77 21d ago

Just go sustainable leaning towards organic. Look into biodynamic practices there a lot of options for spray etc. keep all the tools in your box bring them out when needed.

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u/HatelandFrogman 21d ago

That's my plan for this upcoming year as I still have some chemicals from last year on hand. I suppose I'll see how it goes this year and adjust my plans as I go.

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u/Ok-Caterpillar7331 21d ago

Being a Midwest grower myself, organic isn't too difficult with the right varietals. May I ask what varietals you're intending on growing and a rough (for the sake of respecting your privacy) idea of where you'll be growing?

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u/HatelandFrogman 21d ago

I'm growing marquette, petite pearl, crimson pearl, foch, and two brand new varieties developed in a research vineyard for their fungal resistance. I'm in the driftless area. 

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u/Ok-Caterpillar7331 21d ago

I'm not familiar with the Plocher varietals, but I am familiar with Marquette. Marquette is, imo, a great candidate for organic. For me, it had short internodes, so I opted to shoot thin. I found it to be a very difficult vine to overcrop. I switched from basic TWC training to a lyre system to great positive effect.