Double success of combining technical management with low pesticide inputs in the vineyard to obtain PDO wines in France

Abstract

Context and purpose of the study – Viticulture is a major contributor to the antagonism of positive reputation and negative environmental impacts of agriculture. Vine contrinbute to structure landscape in the world, resulting, for example, in the delimitation of protected designations of origin (PDO). PDO vine is currently subject to the double challenge of sustainability and climate change adaptation. As vine is very sensitive to diseases and pests, vine requires a high use of pesticides to achieve its quality and yield goals. This high need for pesticides is the most important negative impact of environmental components. This is why there is a challenge to reduce pesticide use without defacing quality and quantity of harvest. For that, new agroecological vine system can be designed with the Efficiency-Substitution-Redesign framework (Hill & Mac Rae, 1995). Consequently, it is necessary to assess existing and future vine systems to validate jointly sustainability and quality. One efficient way is to design or adapt methods developed for other agricultural systems. The purpose of the presentation is to present examples of assessment methods and their implementation on vine, grape and wine.

Material and methods – The results are based on experimentation, survey, qualitative and quantitative analysis of datasets. Material was fields in research institute and in private wineries located in French PDO vineyards.

Results – First, we proposed examples methods assessing sustainability of vine management. The first example is INDIGO®-vine method which assess environemental impact of vine management. INDIGO® was adapted from arable crops. INDIGO® assesses the risk for soil, water, air and human health to vine system (Thiollet-Scholtus & Bockstaller, 2015). The method also implies the design of 2 new indicators dealing with soil cover management and frost protection management. INDIGO®-vine offers a compromise between feasibility and predictive quality. The second example is IDEA method (Zahm et al., 2008), which assesses environmental, social and economic dimensions of sustainability. Finaly, Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) was adapted to vine (Renaud-Gentié et al., 2015, 2020). LCA-vine assesses the environmental components (Nemecek et al., 2022). The adaptation deals with emission and toxicity modelling of pesticides and emission modelling of nitrates (Kadouno et al., 2022). The three methods have been implemented and validated on conventional, integrated, organic and biodynamic vine system.

Secondly, it was necessary to join the assessment of the quality of products of vine, in particular in PDO areas. Lemoigne et al. (2008) built an original multicriteria method to assess ripening of grape. The method makes more efficient to choose the level of grape ripening to the targeted wine to be produced, according to climatic conditions and PDO area. The second example is a predictive assessment model of global quality of grape (Beauchet et al., 2020). Both methods were implemented in real field conditions under several contrasted climatic vintages. At the same time, society is increasingly demanding a more sustainable vine with maintaining grape quality for PDO wine production. To answer this demand, we need to join assessment of sustainability and quality and we need to design and adapt assessment methods to future agroecological vine system.

Thirdly, the first example of an joint method is the aggregation of LCA assessment and the predictive assessment model of grape quality (Beauchet et al., submitted). The join method was applied on integrated and organic vine systems. The second example joins INDIGO® indicators, a new socio-economical indicator, named SOECO, biochemical analysis of berry and sensory assessment of wine (Thiollet-Scholtus et al., 2021). The method was implemented on 11 new agroecological vine systems, dealing, for example, with no pesticides and resistant varieties.

To conclude, multi-criteria methods to assess future viticulture are a strategic tool for maintaining PDO vineyards both for their sustainability and their ability to adapt to climate change.