Success of organic grapes in different vineyard conditions: yield and berry quality

Abstract

Organic farming may be one solution to reduce the quantities of pesticides used in viticulture. Various innovative organic practices are required because Protected Designation of Origin (PDO) vineyards are planted in very different soil and climate conditions. During the transition to Innovative Organic Viticulture (IOV) i.e. drastic reduction of cupper use by adding citrus essential oils, changing practices can strongly affect the agronomic performances. In this study, we analyzed the performances of organic grape production systems during the transition to IOV. An experimental network with 7 studied cases in transition to IOV, located in Northeastern and in Mediterranean PDO vineyards in France, has been set up since 2013. Each case was studied during three years of transition to IOV. The results support that most of the studied cases succeed in expected yield and grape quality for PDO wine production in very different soil and climate conditions. Yield and grape quality were chosen according to the fact that they are the main variables dealing with economic sustainability of the winery and respect of PDO constraints. In all Alsace cases and in most of Mediterranean cases, the yield ratios were satisfactory the 3-yeared of observation because estimated yield match with targeted yield. The quality results support that most of the studied cases succeed in targeted sugar rate according to the different PDO conditions. In this study, we demonstrated that the success of organic grape production is guaranteed in most of the studied cases. The targeted yield and targeted sugar rate are achieved in very different vineyard areas conditions. Equally, year climate, latitude climate and PDO conditions are appropriated to spread out Innovative Organic Viticulture.