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[00:00:00] As 2024 comes to a close, we want to recognize five ways certification made our brands the SIP this year. And even if you aren't SIP certified, there's lots of great ideas in this marketing tip that can help you promote your brand.
[00:00:17] Welcome to Marketing Tip Monday with SIP Certified. We know that customers are looking for wines labeled as sustainable. While our longer form episodes help you learn about the latest science and research for the wine industry, These twice monthly micro podcasts will help you share your dedication to sustainable wine growing.
[00:00:36] Now let's get into the five ways.
[00:00:38] Number one was providing regulatory relief for 161 vineyards. 2024 was the first year that growers on California's central coast had to submit total nitrogen applied reports to their regional water board. These growers must report how much water, compost, and fertilizer was applied to their crop, as well as the nitrogen content from each of these sources. Because SIP certified vineyards are already submitting this data to the program, we partnered with Preservation Inc. to complete and submit these reports on their behalf, saving them countless hours of administrative work. And Central Coast growers can participate again in 2025.
[00:01:18] Number two, six stories were released in Grape and Wine magazine. Each one of this year's issues told a unique story about how a SIP certified member practices sustainability. Their stories help spread awareness of what it takes to make sustainable wine.
[00:01:33] Number three is reciprocal club tastings for nearly 30 brands. In February, nearly 30 brands across four California counties And Michigan State enjoyed Reciprocal Club tastings during Reciprocal February 2024. This month long event helps connect tasting rooms with other like minded brands and wine enthusiasts who value sustainability. It's a great way to boost tasting room traffic during a historically slow month. And there are even more participants already signed up for Reciprocal February 2025.
[00:02:07] Number four is visibility on over 2. 7 million bottles. 20 wine brands help increase awareness of SIP Certified by putting the logo on their bottle. Having information about sustainability on your packaging shows customers that the wine was made with care for the people and the planet. That's it. Did you know that any wine made with at least 85 percent SIP certified fruit, whether estate or purchased, can apply to put the logo on their bottle? Make sure you check out our show notes to learn more.
[00:02:35] And number five, we completed nine in person sustainability trainings. We talked with hospitality teams about sustainability in the wine industry, And identified ways that they uniquely practice sustainability at their own operation so that they can feel more confident talking about their certification with customers.
[00:02:53] Now, if you want to learn more about any of these five highlights from 2024, make sure you check out the show notes. There's tons of links and contacts to help you get started telling your own sustainable story. Until next time, this is sustainable wine growing with the vineyard team.
Resources: *** Tell Your Sustainable Story Online Course *** 5 Ways Certification Makes Brands the SIP Apply for SIP Certified Wine Marketing Tips eNewsletter Sustainable Story | Print Sustainable Story | Electronic Vineyard Team Programs: Juan Nevarez Memorial Scholarship - Donate SIP Certified – Show your care for the people and planet Sustainable Ag Expo – The premiere winegrowing event of the year Sustainable Winegrowing On-Demand (Western SARE) – Learn at your own pace Vineyard Team – Become a Member -
Since the year 2000, wineries in the United States have grown from 2,000 to nearly 12,000. How can a brand stand out in the market? Dan McCole, Associate Professor in the Department of Community Sustainability at Michigan State University researches the impact of tourism on communities. He studied what makes brands that make the majority of their sales in the tasting room successful in new wine regions including Texas, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. Dan shares tips on how to sell new hybrid varieties, what messaging has the biggest impact on sales, and what customers are really coming to the tasting room for (it's not wine!).
Resources: 222: How Sustainability Sells in a Tough Market | Marketing Tip Monday 246: 3 Ways to Make Your Tasting an Experience | Marketing Tip Monday Dan McCcole Exploring Winery Visitors in the Emerging Wine Regions of the North Central United States Market research reveals why consumers are drawn to wineries in Michigan Survey of Wineries and Non-winery Tourism Businesses in 25 Emerging Wine Regions The impact of different product messages on wine tourists' willingness to pay: A non-hypothetical experiment Understanding winery visitors Vineyard Team Programs: Juan Nevarez Memorial Scholarship - Donate SIP Certified – Show your care for the people and planet Sustainable Ag Expo – The premiere winegrowing event of the year Sustainable Winegrowing On-Demand (Western SARE) – Learn at your own pace Vineyard Team – Become a Member Get MoreSubscribe wherever you listen so you never miss an episode on the latest science and research with the Sustainable Winegrowing Podcast. Since 1994, Vineyard Team has been your resource for workshops and field demonstrations, research, and events dedicated to the stewardship of our natural resources.
Learn more at www.vineyardteam.org.
Transcript[00:00:00] Beth Vukmanic: Since the year 2000, wineries in the United States have grown from 2000 to nearly 12, 000. How can a brand stand out in the market? Welcome to Sustainable Wine Growing with the Vineyard Team, where we bring you the latest in science and research for the wine industry. I'm Beth Vukmanic, Executive Director, Since 1994, Vineyard Team has brought you the latest science based practices, experts, growers, and wine industry tools through both infield and online education so that you can grow your business.
[00:00:37] Please raise a glass with us as we cheers to 30 years.
[00:00:41] In today's podcast, Craig Macmillan, Critical Resource Manager at Niner Wine Estates, with a longtime SIP certified vineyard and the first ever SIP certified winery, speaks with Dan McCole, Associate Professor in the Department of Community Sustainability at Michigan State University.
[00:01:00] Dan researches the impact of tourism on communities. He studied what makes brands that make the majority of their sales in the tasting room successful in new wine regions, including Texas, Michigan, and Pennsylvania.
[00:01:15] Dan shares tips on how to sell new hybrid varieties. What messaging has the biggest impact on sales and what customers are really coming to the tasting room for hint It's not wine
[00:01:28] want to be more connected with the viticulture industry, but don't know where to start become a vineyard team member Get access to the latest science based practices experts growers and wine industry tools through both infield and online Education so that you can grow your business Visit vineyardteam. org and choose grower or business to join the community today. Now let's listen in.
[00:01:52] Craig Macmillan: Our guest today is Dan McCole. He is an associate professor in the department of community sustainability at Michigan state university. And today we're going to talk about some lesser known smaller wine regions and the challenges of marketing hybrid wine grape varieties to customers and some successes.
[00:02:08] So thanks for being on the podcast, Dan.
[00:02:10] Dan McCole: I'm happy to be here, Craig.
[00:02:12] Craig Macmillan: Before we, we get talking about wine in particular I'd like to kind of get oriented in your larger focus. You've done a lot of work in the world of natural resources and ag based tourism contributing to community sustainability. And I think that that's a really interesting topic just in general.
[00:02:28] Can you tell me a little bit about your work just in the broad scheme and kind of what kinds of things you're interested in
[00:02:33] Dan McCole: Yeah, sure. It's funny, I actually got into wine. I'm really a tourism scholar. And shortly after I arrived at Michigan State University, I was pulled into a project, that was looking at specifically at tourism. It was part of a larger project that looked at cold hardy wine varieties. So cold hardy hybrids.
[00:02:55] And there was a team of viticulturalists and enologists and economists. And I was sort of brought in there, for the business portion of the team specifically looking at tourism, but that also some consumer behavior questions that we had on that as part of that project. My focus within tourism is the impact of tourism on communities specifically.
[00:03:15] I'm not a hospitality guy. I look at the impact of tourism on communities. And so, you know, especially in areas like where I live in Michigan the industrial Midwest where, you know, the economy is shifting a bit. You have these places that sort of former manufacturing areas, former extraction areas for like lumber and coal and things like that.
[00:03:36] They're looking to new industries and tourism is a big part of it. And so we look at all the impacts on those communities, both positive and negative. We look at economic impacts, sociocultural impacts and environmental impacts.
[00:03:47] Craig Macmillan: it's exciting to see the growth in wine industries throughout the United States. I think that it's fascinating and it's only going to continue. In my opinion, I think we're going to see more of this, but again, then you're selling wines that are not commonly known. You're using the Frontenac one example. Marquette in particular was a variety that you had done some special work on. Tell me a little bit about what you did around that.
[00:04:12] Dan McCole: Just to echo what you're saying. First of all, about the growth in, in the number of wineries is crazy. In the year 2000, I think the U S had 2000 wineries. Now we're up to almost 12,000. That's just crazy growth. So it's not only interesting, it's just fascinating. And. A lot of that growth has happened outside of the traditional wine areas in the West Coast.
[00:04:30] It's happened, you know, in places like where I live in Michigan, but Pennsylvania, Iowa, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Texas, you know, Virginia, everywhere. And that to me is quite interesting because a lot of these wineries are, they're pretty small. And they sell a lot of their wine out of the tasting room which makes it a tourism product really, because they have to drive visitors to their tasting room.
[00:04:52] So that's, that's what got my interest. But in a lot of these areas, you can't necessarily grow the traditional wines that you can out in California, for instance, in the central valley or, you know, Napa, Sonoma. Here in Michigan, we do have some areas where you can go vernifera and mostly, you know, like German varietal, the Riesling is, is quite good here, you know, cool, cool temps, but they're really in small microclimates, but a lot of the areas I tend to work in, they rely on, you know, hybrid grapes, wine grapes.
[00:05:22] And, you know, these have just developed over the last 20 years, a lot of them or, you know, some of them are a little bit older but some of them are quite new, including Marquette, which is probably, You know, 15, 16, 17 years old since it was developed at University of Minnesota. And that wine in particular is quite interesting because when you're talking about, especially up here in the North where I work and with a lot of the wineries I'm at, they can do okay with white wines, but red wine has always been a bit of a challenge.
[00:05:48] And so Marquette comes along and it's pretty promising wine for making, you know, red wine. So everybody was pretty excited about it. We wanted to know a little bit more about what you tell consumers that will impact their interest in a wine. In academia, we talk about this concept called willingness to pay or valuation.
[00:06:09] Essentially what we're talking about is, how much does a product mean to somebody? And that they're willing to buy and how much are they willing to buy it for? So we did these interesting studies with Marquette looking at what can you tell somebody about this grape? That will increase their valuation of it because when we were talking to wineries, you know We'd ask them like what do you tell them about Marquette? And they said, well, you know, we tell them this and that. And as we had these conversations with a number of wineries, we could pretty much break down what they told about this grape into three categories.
[00:06:42] One was sort of these sensory descriptions, medium bodied wine, grandson of Pinot Noir and, with hints of, and flavors of such and such
[00:06:54] another category of information that they were talking about was, the local message, you know, everybody's into locally produced, locally you know, grown local, local, local. They talked about how the Marquette grape was developed sort of locally specifically for these environments. It doesn't require as many agricultural inputs you know, to be able to grow here. It, Helps local wineries to produce these kind of wines, et cetera, very local, local, local message.
[00:07:23] And then the third thing was they talked about how wines made with Marquette grapes had won competitions at international wine competitions. And so, you know, that was one of the things they told about them. And so we wanted to know, like of those messages, does anyone have. A little bit more bang
[00:07:38] Craig Macmillan: Right, right.
[00:07:39] Dan McCole: you know, that you have, and, and, you know, that could be communicated on the label or in the tasting room or in tasting notes or whatever.
[00:07:46] So, you know, essentially we did this complicated experiment and which is, you know, a whole other story on its own, but but it was kind of interesting, but essentially what we found was that one of those three messages didn't really impact people's willingness to pay. One of them did a little bit. And one of them did quite a bit.
[00:08:05] Craig Macmillan: I'm on the edge of my seat.
[00:08:06] Dan McCole: You're on the edge of your seat. Okay. I was wondering if you wanted to have a quiz. They didn't want to pay less, but they didn't necessarily want to pay more.
[00:08:13] The local message, people were willing to pay more for that, but not a lot.
[00:08:17] It was the awards, and it was interesting because we had people sample four different Marquette wines, and we didn't ask them about the specific wines, we just asked questions about Marquette wines. Here are four Marquette wines, you know, so you get a sense of this grape and the wines made from it.
[00:08:33] And we didn't say that these wines had won awards just that wines made with Marquette had won awards. But that made people pay a willingness to pay a lot more.
[00:08:41] Craig Macmillan: Interesting.
[00:08:43] Dan McCole: And, and I think that has something to do with wine itself as a product. Part of our other research shows that, you know, The people who tend to go to tasting rooms in these emerging areas don't necessarily have the same level of wine knowledge or wine experience or wine purchase behavior.
[00:08:58] And so they might be looking a little bit more toward people who are experts in this to tip them as to if they should like this or not. I mean, we're all kind of like that with, with wine, the points and things like that, you know, let's see what a, an expert tells us. And we're influenced by that.
[00:09:15] Craig Macmillan: That is interesting. It just made me think of diffusion of innovation, you know, where you have some folks that would be like, Oh, Marquette's delicious, fantastic, I want it. And then there's another population that's like, Well, let's, is it? If other people are indicating that it's good and that they like it, which is communicated through points in this case, then that opens the door.
[00:09:35] And then maybe you get some more momentum after that, some more momentum after that, momentum after that, you know, and wine regions have kind of developed along that same. Principle, the sense of place piece is also kind of interesting because a lot of wineries, I think are really focused on conveying these wines are a sense of place.
[00:09:52] And I was expecting that to be a real motivator because these are special places with special wines. But not necessarily.
[00:10:02] Dan McCole: Well, yeah, you know, wine more than probably any other product at least beverage is, so tied to the terroir, right? If you're thinking about a wine in Michigan or Iowa or, Missouri and you know, a little bit something about wine, you'd say, Oh, those aren't really wine areas. Are they?
[00:10:22] And you might be a little skeptical. Whereas, you know, if you're talking about, Oh, this wine is made in Italy or France or Chile or, California or, Australia, wherever people say, Oh, yeah, they make good wines there. Right? This tie to the terroir in the area is true. But think about like, yeah. craft beers. People don't really give it the same level of scrutiny where it's made from. If you go to you know, a place, I mean, we just don't have the connection, you know, Germany or Czech or, you know, places are known for certain kinds of beer, but you're not necessarily skeptical about a beer made in Iowa or Missouri or Michigan or, wherever.
[00:10:58] Same thing with spirits. We've seen a lot of craft distilleries coming around , and people think that's cool, . But wine, they're still a little suspicious of really. Could we really have a good wine made in this location or that location? So that sense of place is interesting. So I think with the, experiments we did, it was really that the reason there was a little bit of an increase, I think, is just people for. Mostly environmental reasons but you know, some other reasons to support local business you know, latched on to that local message. And we're willing to pay a little bit more for that, but not a lot more.
[00:11:30] Craig Macmillan: Right. And if I remember correctly the environmental aspects of this did play at least a little bit of a role
[00:11:37] Dan McCole: that that's exactly right. That is something that wineries do communicate about the wines especially made with hybrid wine grapes. I mean, first of all, the, the term hybrid grape is something that the industry uses and people like you and I might use but the average consumer doesn't know what that means.
[00:11:53] The average consumer doesn't know what Vitis vinifera is. They've maybe heard of grapes, but, you know, if you ask them if they've heard of Cabernet Sauvignon or Marquette, they might say, Oh, I've heard of Cabernet Sauvignon, and if they're from certain areas where Marquette is grown, they might say, Oh, yeah, I've heard of that too, to a lesser extent, but they're not gonna know that one's a hybrid grape and one's not.
[00:12:13] And even if you were told, they wouldn't know what that means. Cabernet Sauvignon sounds like a hybrid. Between Cabernet and Sauvignon, right? So, like, they don't really make that distinction as much as the industry does.
[00:12:25] Craig Macmillan: Are there other varieties in the upper Midwest that have the same kind of potential, do you think?
[00:12:31] Dan McCole: There are several that people are interested. You mentioned Frontenac before. Frontenac's been around for a while and it's another one that makes a red wine. Petite Pearl is sort of another one that's a little newer than Marquette, which has some promise.
[00:12:45] On the white you have which has also been around for a little bit and you know, Brianna and La Crescent and, and some of those essentially what they do is allow for this growth that we've seen in areas where it was previously not feasible to, produce wine.
[00:13:02] People are ever going to get to the point where they prefer a Marquette over a Cabernet Sauvignon, I mean, some people do but in large numbers that could be a while. And it may never happen. To me, a lot of these wineries and these areas. They're, they're smaller wineries that sell most of what they produce out of their tasting room.
[00:13:24] And that's a pretty good model for them because when you're producing such a small amount of wine, the production cost per bottle is pretty high, so just to break even you might need to, you know, sell it at 15, 16, 17 dollars a bottle. If you want a little bit of a margin, you're going for 25 dollars.
[00:13:44] Now if you're in a wine shop And you have the choice between, a $25 bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon or, go with something else like a you know, a Pinot Noir or something, and a $25 bottle of Marquette. It's gonna be hard for that Marquette to compete.
[00:14:03] Plus the winery's gonna have to pay the, middleman, the distributor and the retailer. They're cut too. Selling it out of the tasting room makes a lot of sense when it's that high. You don't have the competition, you don't have to give other people their cut. ,
[00:14:16] what we've found in these areas is that people aren't going to the wineries for wine.
[00:14:23] Our research clearly shows this. They're going for a wine based experience or wine themed experience, when we ask people why they came to the winery, the reasons given were, for a relaxing day out to socialize with somebody else to bond with friends or loved one or you know, a group of women who are getting ready and part of a bachelorette party or something.
[00:14:44] And, lower down the list is to learn more about wine and lower down is to acquire wine or build my cellar or things like that. They're not going there for that purpose. They're going for an experience.
[00:14:54] Now, if the experience is good and the wine is good enough, they'll buy some of that wine, again, because the context of a purchase. Makes all the difference in the world. For years, we've known this about consumer behavior, that the situation in which somebody buys something makes all the difference in their behavior, whether they're going to buy it. And we know this in the wine industry, right? Think about how much you're willing to pay for a bottle of wine at a restaurant versus at a store.
[00:15:24] Because the situation is different. And our right. Our willingness to pay goes up. Our willingness to buy one product over another changes. And by like the situation I'm talking the physical surroundings make a difference. The social surroundings, who you're with you know, at the time, the temporal perspective, meaning the urgency associated with it whether you have plenty of time to shop, whether you're in a hurry, What they call the task, which is like the reason for the purchase.
[00:15:49] So are you buying it for a gift? Are you bringing it to somebody's house? Are you getting it as a souvenir? And then, and this is, I think most important is something called the antecedent States. And this is like the consumers. Mood at the, at the moment of purchase, it's emotional state. And this has changed by, you know, what has happened immediately before the purchase.
[00:16:11] So if you're at a winery and you know, Iowa, Missouri, Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and. You're having a great time and you and I are there together. We're getting along real well, getting to know each other. We're having a wine. The wine's, you know, fine. It's pretty good. We talked to some other people. It's just been a great day out. The weather's been beautiful. There are beautiful views and we walked through the vineyard. We're in a good mood, and that's gonna change our purchase situation. All of those factors change the purchase situation. In some cases, the wine just has to be good enough.
[00:16:44] Now, if the wine is terrible and it's really a burden to drink, we're probably not gonna buy that wine.
[00:16:50] Craig Macmillan: A burden to drink. I love that. I've never heard that before. I'm going to use that in my real life.
[00:16:56] Dan McCole: Have you, have you had many wines that have been a burden
[00:16:59] Craig Macmillan: I I'm a judge for a home winemaking competition. So yes, many wines are a burden to drink.
[00:17:05] Dan McCole: Yeah, okay. Yeah, I've had a few, but generally I've got a pretty open palate.
[00:17:11] Craig Macmillan: I'm sorry. I interrupted
[00:17:12] Dan McCole: if we, found these wines to be, you know, not great, then we're not going to buy them. You know, it's going to dampen our experience, if the, the wine grapes that you were asking about, if they're good enough, they're good enough. There's a market there for that. They don't need to be the next, you know, Chardonnay.
[00:17:28] Craig Macmillan: Something else that you looked at that I found pretty fascinating was you look for commonalities or differences in wine consumers. I think it was in Michigan. You were connecting with people, I think at the winery And we're doing some survey work. And so I started some semi structured interview work. Is that right?
[00:17:42] Dan McCole: Well, not necessarily. We have done some structured interviewing, but I think what you're talking about. So we had a program that we did for several years, both in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota, where we developed a system to be able to intercept people at the winery very quickly. We didn't want to disrupt their experience at the winery, just very quickly.
[00:18:04] And we, we worked with wineries, they did these intercepts for us. Would you be interested in participating in a study that Michigan State's doing? If so, just give us your name and email and they will follow up with you within a week. So we got this, we worked with a number of wineries, so we, every week we would get, you know, a few hundred names and we would survey them. And we do this over, you know, a 16 week period every year.
[00:18:25] Craig Macmillan: wow.
[00:18:25] Dan McCole: We got in touch with a lot of people who had just taken a visit to the winery and we were able to ask a lot of different questions. One line of inquiry that we focused on was trying to get to know who are these consumers?
[00:18:39] This is where we first learned that the consumers who go to a winery are different from wine consumers. They're a form of wine consumer, but they're not the same as what most of the information, the trade information available on wine consumers is because that those air mostly in a retail context.
[00:18:58] That's where I told you earlier. We learned that, the visitors to wineries in these areas tended to be a little less wine knowledgeable, have a little less wine experience. Purchased a little less wine, you know, beforehand before, you know, coming to the winery and and there were also some differences state to state mostly that had to do with some spending, but some of that was explained geographically, how close the wineries were to major breweries. Population areas and things like that.
[00:19:29] One interesting thing that we learned. So in, Michigan, I, I mentioned this earlier, quite a , a lot of the wineries are in areas where they will produce wines with vinifera, grapes that we've heard of before. You know, Cabernet Franc Riesling, Pinot Grigio, some Chardonnay, you know, etc.
[00:19:48] And there are some wineries that that use cold, hearty grapes in Wisconsin and Minnesota. They pretty much all use these cold, hearty grapes. So we asked people, how familiar are you with cold, hearty grapes? And it was interesting in Michigan. They shared familiarity greater than the other two states.
[00:20:05] But when we asked them if they'd heard of these specific grapes You know, Marquette Marichal Foch yeah, Frontenac, Gris, Frontenac Brianna, La Crescent. We made up a few names of grapes that don't exist. And in Michigan, they were just as likely to say they've heard of those made up grapes as the real grapes.
[00:20:27] And in Wisconsin and Minnesota, however , they hadn't heard of those and they indicated that they've heard of the real grapes. And, and so what that told us was that if you, familiarize the consumer enough with these grapes, they'll get to know them and recognize them. And in Michigan they just hadn't because there aren't as many that use these cold hardy grapes.
[00:20:47] Craig Macmillan: Oh, that's, that's really interesting. We're talking about cold hardy's equality. I've done been doing a lot of interviews with folks from places like Texas. And also the Pacific Northwest, which are both areas that are very vulnerable to climate change. And in the case of the Northwest, that still might be vinifera. But for instance, the Willamette Valley may have to rethink Pinot Noir if things continue to warm. In Texas, it's about heat, where they're having just terrible collapses of vines. And there are, you know, these heat tolerant varieties that nobody's heard of. If you were to be called in as an expert and flown to Texas, what kind of advice would you give to the extensionists at Texas A& M or to the wine marketing associations or anything like that? Based on what you've learned in the Midwest.
[00:21:37] Dan McCole: I do work with some people from Texas A& M on different projects that we've been part of. So I'm a little bit familiar with their challenges, mostly they're viticulturalists they have unique challenges. The kind of things that, that I work with that really apply, even though most of my work has been done up here in the, upper Midwest and the great lakes area from the, small business perspective, they have the same challenges.
[00:21:59] I would argue that in fact, I published a paper on, proposing that there are really four different kinds of wine regions. One is sort of the famous wine regions we know about. Those would be the Napa and the Sonoma or a Tuscany and other places like that Burgundy and France. They produce a lot of wine and they have good wine tourism 'cause people want to go to these regions.
[00:22:22] Then we have regions that produce a lot of wine, but they don't necessarily have a whole lot of tourism. They don't rely too much on tourism. These are the bulk wine producing regions of the world.
[00:22:33] Then you have lots of regions around the world. Especially you think of like Eastern Europe, they have a long tradition of winemaking, but it's really just for local consumption, right? And and so they, they sell it locally. They don't really rely on tourism. People aren't going to these regions. , you can think of Bulgaria and. You know, certain parts of Austria or, you know, wherever.
[00:22:55] And then there's this newer fourth region. And these are wineries that don't have a long tradition of winemaking. These are like the wineries that have popped up all over the U. S. over the last 20 years, and they are entirely reliant on tourism. to sell their product because they're mostly selling out of the tasting room. And each one of these four regions has different business models.
[00:23:16] If a winery is in an area that relies on tasting room sales, either entirely or largely and or is making wines with grapes that people are less familiar with then they have similar challenges regardless of where they're located or what those wines are called.
[00:23:36] One of the things I would say is recognize that, people are there to buy an experience, not a product. And if they have a good experience, they'll buy the product. A lot of wineries I've worked with, they understand this, but they still consider themselves being in the, you know, primarily wineries and wine producers.
[00:23:55] And, and they are, and you can understand why they are that way. Their consumer's primary, you know, the product they're seeking the most is not a actual tangible product. It is that experience. And so realizing that that that you are really in that experience industry just happens to be wine themed and you also produce wine and you're going to sell that wine to them that realizing why people are there and then that they're Behavior, the things that are going to change their behavior, get them to buy more wine, et cetera is going to be different from most of the information that's out there about consumers realizing that the wine consumer behavior that's out there and all the trade magazines Is mostly for people at retail and they are very different there.
[00:24:40] They have a lot of commonalities And even if we're talking about the same people the situation is different and therefore their behavior is different So essentially they're a different kind of consumer, when they're there and then the last thing I would tell them is you know based on what I was telling you about the work we had done in minnesota and wisconsin is don't shy away from the name of the grape and, , just say that, and people don't care if it's hybrid or not, just push the name of that grape. So you get some recognition of it. And then people, especially if they're newer to , to wine, you know, they're gonna say, Oh, I really like this grape. I like wines are made with this grape. And, you know, they tell two friends and so on and so on.
[00:25:20] Craig Macmillan: Interesting. I don't think I saw this in your writing, but obviously you have some experience with this. Are there particular things, elements that a winery that's selling this experience, types of experiences, types of things that a winery would have the most success with or things that you saw that had the most popularity or the most success?
[00:25:43] Dan McCole: Yeah, we, we haven't done that work. We actually have a proposed in a grant that, hopefully will be funded coming forward. A colleague of mine at Cornell, Miguel Gomez, he did a couple interesting little experiments to, see what, generated more sales in, in one experiment, he found that essentially the, the more satisfied people were with their tasting room experience. The more wine they bought and the more money they spent on wine. So the more bottles, the more money they spent and the more bottles they purchased. And, and it was really clear. And if you could get somebody from being very satisfied to extremely satisfied, The amount of wine just jumped way up in the amount of spending.
[00:26:29] So trying to get somebody extremely satisfied with their tasting room experience. So that begs the question, what leads to satisfaction experience. And what was interesting is it wasn't the quality of the wines. It was things like, crowding if it wasn't too crowded decoration, the atmosphere that was created, whether it was a nice place the service. The you know, the people serving.
[00:26:54] I was at another conference where another colleague Zeta Vickers at University of Minnesota. She had done some experiments with tasting those. She was giving people wines to try and she would show them photos of people in different states of emotion. So some of them were really happy, some of them were angry, some of them were scared, some of them were sad, whatever. And she experimented with the same group of wines. And asked people to rate their level of satisfaction. And one of the things she learned was regardless of which wine followed, the wine after showing somebody who was happy, a picture of somebody who was happy, was always rated more higher than the other emotions.
[00:27:34] And so the lesson that she gave from this and fits in with Miguel's work is if you're hiring somebody to work in your tasting room and you have a choice between two people, one of them is incredibly knowledgeable about wine knows everything there is to know, but isn't the most . necessarily friendly, outgoing person in the world and the other one doesn't know much about wine, but is very engaging and friendly and outgoing. Train that person about wine, hire them and train them about wine versus the wine person what Zeta said, if people are in a good mood or they see somebody in a good mood, they're more likely to be satisfied with the wine.
[00:28:08] And if they're more satisfied with the wine and more satisfied with their experience, then they're, going to buy more wine.
[00:28:13] Craig Macmillan: Variable I wonder about is music.
[00:28:16] Dan McCole: Yeah,
[00:28:17] Craig Macmillan: I'm really curious about what impact that might have. And it gets to this emotional response piece, where if people are having a good time, you see people smiling, the staff are very friendly and smiling, that encourages you to Enjoy the experience be satisfied the experience then purchase product as a result
[00:28:34] Dan McCole: I would agree with that 100%. And I think that's part of being very satisfied or extremely satisfied with the tasting room experience. If there's either good live music or it doesn't even have to be that there's a, there's a little winery up here in Michigan that, in the middle of their tasting room, they have this, sort of classic Harley.
[00:28:52] And the music in there is always like classic rock, and it's turned up a little bit higher than you would normally expect. And they have a great view and it's a really beautiful winery and it's looking over Lake Michigan, it's really lovely you can't go there and not have a good time, you know, it's just a lot of fun.
[00:29:08] Craig Macmillan: yeah, that's interesting if there's one thing you were gonna tell folks regardless of where they were on this topic Making the sale of an unknown wine variety. What would it be? Just one idea one thing
[00:29:22] Dan McCole: Well, based on the research what we told people about the awards that were won, if your wine has won awards showcase them. Let people know that that they've won awards that that really does seem to make a difference. So to the point where once we, when we had our findings, we were reporting them at a conference of winemakers and, and somebody said, I'm really glad you said that because we did win awards, but we'd already had our bottles labeled.
[00:29:46] And so we were, printing off different stickers that we're applying by hand, bottle by bottle. And we were going to give up doing that, but maybe we should continue. And I said, yeah, I mean, that was the thing more than anything else. You communicate to people about the wines is that they'd won awards.
[00:30:01] Because if you're talking about people who everybody feels a little inferior, not everybody. We, we all know some people who are very. You know, feel like they know everything there is to know about wine, but a lot of us are, are a little inferior about whether we know as much as we should about wine to have experts sort of say that, you know, wine more than, more than a lot of things makes a big difference.
[00:30:23] And so awards are, are one of those things and enter those competitions. And, and if you win them make sure you communicate that to your consumers.
[00:30:30] Craig Macmillan: That's fascinating. Where can people find out more about you?
[00:30:33] Dan McCole: Well, they can go onto the, website or, or look me up, Dan McCole. You'll find some of the writings I've had on Google and there are two Dan McCalls out there. One's my dad, he's an artist in Boston. And then may just don't go for the watercolors, go for the stuff about wine.
[00:30:47] Craig Macmillan: And yeah, in the show notes, there'll be links to a number of your publications, which I found fascinating. And I think other people will too. Thank you so much. Our guest today has been Dan McCole. He's associate professor in the department of community sustainability at Michigan state university. Dan, thanks for being here. This has been a really interesting conversation.
[00:31:05] Dan McCole: Thanks a lot, Craig. I enjoyed talking to you.
[00:31:06] Beth Vukmanic: Thank you for listening. Make sure you check out the show notes for links to Dan, a number of his articles on market research, plus Sustainable Wine Growing Podcast episodes, 222, How Sustainability Sells in a Tough Market, and 246, Three Ways to Make Your Tasting an Experience. If you liked the show, do us a big favor by sharing it with a friend, subscribing, and leaving us a review.
[00:31:34] You can find all of the podcasts at vineyardteam. org slash podcast. And you can reach us at podcast at vineyardteam. org until next time. This is sustainable wine growing with the vineyard team.
Nearly perfect transcription by Descript
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[00:00:00] Beth Vukmanic: It's one thing to be able to say that your grapes are grown sustainably, but to be able to explain to someone what that really means is a different story.
[00:00:09] Welcome to Marketing Tip Monday with Sip Certified. We know that customers are looking for wines labeled as sustainable. While our longer form episodes help you learn about the latest science and research for the wine industry, These twice monthly micro podcasts will help you share your dedication to sustainable wine growing.
[00:00:30] When it comes to telling your sustainable story, there's an easy framework that can help you. The seven values of SIP certified, which include social responsibility, water management, safe pest management, energy efficiency, habitat, business, and always evolving.
[00:00:47] You can use these seven values to talk about the real ways your brand practices sustainability at every level of your business.
[00:00:55] Dozens of SIP certified brands have already used this framework. In this week's marketing tip, we share the 2024 sustainable stories and invite you to be featured next year.
[00:01:06] Our first value is social responsibility. Oso Libre's Por Vida Foundation supports four causes that are near and dear to the owner's hearts. Veteran services, women's cancer research, animal support groups, and children and family support groups. In fact, this year, they donated funding raised from their July Angus event to the Vineyard Team's Juan Nevarez Memorial Scholarship, helps children of vineyard and wine industry workers pay for a higher education. By supporting Oso Libre, guests and customers give back, too.
[00:01:39] The second value is water management. At the heart of Bien Nacido Vineyard's sustainable farming ethos lies a diligent approach to water management. Their team of experienced irrigators tailor their irrigation practices to fit the land's needs by using weather data and plant and soil moisture data.
[00:01:57] Our third value is safe pest management. Presqu'ile Vineyard knew they could protect their vines from birds in a way that was more sustainable than non biodegradable labor intensive bird netting.
[00:02:08] Installing programmable bird lasers has protected their vineyards from feathered pests on top of having several other sustainable benefits.
[00:02:17] The fourth value is energy efficiency. From a hillside nestled production facility that utilizes gravity flow to solar panels that provide the majority of the energy needs for their building and EV charging stations for customers, Niner Wine Estates reaches a high bar for energy efficiency.
[00:02:36] The fifth value is habitat. The team at Ancient Peaks Winery and Margarita Adventures is dedicated to protecting the habitats of the various species of wildlife that inhabit the land and water on their property. If you want to learn more about the native life at the ranch, you can take one of several tours with naturalist Jacqueline, including nature photography, foraging, and my favorite, ziplining.
[00:03:00] The sixth value is business. As a business rooted in female leadership, Cambria Estate Winery shows their dedication to uplifting and empowering women in an incredibly impactful way. Every March for Women's History Month, Cambria selects an organization that aligns with their pillars of climate action and women's leadership and pledges $25,000 to support their efforts.
[00:03:26] And the seventh value is always evolving. Tolosa's Three P's Groups welcomes everyone on their team to participate in the business's value of always evolving. Employees get involved in a group, either people, planet, or prosperity, and work together to find ways to analyze and improve the business's sustainable practices.
[00:03:46] If you want to read any of these incredible stories in more detail, make sure that you go to the show notes and click on the link, how these brands grow grapes sustainably.
[00:03:57] If you're a SIP certified brand and want to share your sustainable story, let us know. Simply email Whitney at vineyard team. org with the value you want to share and how you fulfill that value. She will help you write your story. And we'll share it in a future marketing tips newsletter and podcast.
[00:04:14] Until next time, this is sustainable wine growing with the vineyard team.
Resources: *** Tell Your Sustainable Story Online Course *** Apply for SIP Certified Wine How These Brands Grow Grapes Sustainably Marketing Tips eNewsletter Sustainable Story | Print Sustainable Story | Electronic Vineyard Team Programs: Juan Nevarez Memorial Scholarship - Donate SIP Certified – Show your care for the people and planet Sustainable Ag Expo – The premiere winegrowing event of the year Sustainable Winegrowing On-Demand (Western SARE) – Learn at your own pace Vineyard Team – Become a Member -
What causes the “red wine headache”? Is it sulfites? A histamine reaction? Andrew Waterhouse, Professor Emeritus of Enology in the Department of Viticulture and Enology at UC Davis and Apramita Devi, Postdoctoral Scholar in the Department of Viticulture and Enology at UC Davis have identified a flavanol that can interfere with the metabolism of alcohol. That flavanol is quercetin, a natural product made in grape skins in response to sunlight. It is a natural sunscreen produced to protect the fruit from ultraviolet light.
This conversation covers why quercetin may be more prevalent in high end wines, how skin contact during wine production impacts quercetin levels, and why sulfites may play a role in “red wine headache”.
Resources: 74: The Spirit of Wine Andrew Waterhouse Andrew Waterhouse | Google Scholar Andrew Waterhouse | LinkedIn Apramita Devi | LinkedIn Apramita Devi |Google Scholar Inhibition of ALDH2 by quercetin glucuronide suggests a new hypothesis to explain red wine headaches Why Do Some People Get Headaches From Drinking Red Wine? Vineyard Team Programs: Juan Nevarez Memorial Scholarship - Donate SIP Certified – Show your care for the people and planet Sustainable Ag Expo – The premiere winegrowing event of the year Sustainable Winegrowing On-Demand (Western SARE) – Learn at your own pace Vineyard Team – Become a Member Get MoreSubscribe wherever you listen so you never miss an episode on the latest science and research with the Sustainable Winegrowing Podcast. Since 1994, Vineyard Team has been your resource for workshops and field demonstrations, research, and events dedicated to the stewardship of our natural resources.
Learn more at www.vineyardteam.org.
Transcript[00:00:00] Beth Vukmanic: What causes. The red wine headache? Is it sulfites or a histamine reaction?
[00:00:10] Welcome to sustainable wine growing with the vineyard team. Where we bring you the latest in science and research for the wine industry. I'm Beth Vukmanic executive director. I've been your team. Since 1994, we've brought you the latest science-based practices, experts growers and wine industry tools through both infield and online education. So that you can grow your business. Please raise a glass. With us as we cheers to 30 years.
[00:00:37] In today's podcast, Craig Macmillan, critical resource. Manager at Niner wine estates with long time sip certified. Vineyard and the first ever sip certified winery. Speaks with two university of California Davis researchers. Andrew Waterhouse. Professor emeritus of enology and the department. of, viticulture and enology. And. Oprah meta Debbie. Post-doctoral scholar and the department of viticulture and enology.
[00:01:04] They have identified a flavonol that can interfere. With the metabolism of alcohol. And that flavonol is called quercetin. A natural product made in the grape skins in response. To sunlight. It's a natural sunscreen produced to protect. The fruit from ultraviolet light. This conversation covers. Why quercetin may be more prevalent in high end wines. How. Skin contact during wine production impacts quercetin levels. And why sulfites may still play a role in that red wine headache.
[00:01:36] Want to be more connected with the viticulture industry. But don't know where to start become a vineyard team member. Get access. to the latest science-based practices, experts, growers, and wine industry. The tools. Through both infield and online education so that you. You can grow your business. Visit vineyard team.org. And choose grower or business to join the community today.
[00:01:57] Now let's listen. in.
[00:02:01] Craig Macmillan: Our guests today are Andrew Waterhouse, Professor Emeritus in Enology in the Department of Viticulture Davis, and also Aparmita Devi. She is a postdoctoral scholar, also in the Department of Viticulture & Enology Davis. Thank you both for being here.
[00:02:17] Andrew Waterhouse: Oh, we're glad to be here.
[00:02:19] Craig Macmillan: Today we're going to talk about a really interesting topic. It's the role of quercetin , in wine headaches. The two of you recently co authored a paper on this one particular mechanism that might cause some people to get a headache after drinking even a small amount of red wine. But before we get into that, I want to ask you, how did you get interested in this topic?
[00:02:37] Andrew Waterhouse: Well I've been talking to Steve Mathiasson. He's a Napa winemaker for actually quite a while, some years back. He suffers from headaches when he drinks certain wines. And we were chatting about possible mechanisms, and we even did a study many years ago with another postdoc in my lab to investigate a question we had or a theory we had, and that didn't pan out. But more recently we were chatting again, and I got interested in the topic again, and that's what got me interested, you know, just somebody knowledgeable who was suffering from headaches and. for listening. It was, it makes it more real and it's like, well, maybe we can figure something out. So that's what got us started.
[00:03:17] Craig Macmillan: Apramita , how same for you.
[00:03:19] Apramita Devi: Yeah. Same. Like I've been in touch with Andy and we have been talking about this project many years. So I was always interested because I come from biological science and metabolism and stuff I got interested after talking to Andy.
[00:03:33] Craig Macmillan: Well, let's start with some basics. What is quercetin?
[00:03:38] Andrew Waterhouse: Well, basically, it's a natural product made by grapes, but it's a very specific one. It's in the class of polyphenolic compounds, and it's in the class of flavonoids called flavonols. And what makes it interesting, I think, is that it is made By grapes, in the skin of the grape, and only in the skin of the grape, in response to sunlight. It's sometimes referred to as sunscreen for grapes. And it specifically absorbs UV light that would cause damage to, say, DNA and other macromolecules. So it's very clear that the grapes are producing this in order to protect themselves from ultraviolet light.
[00:04:22] Craig Macmillan: Right.
[00:04:22] Andrew Waterhouse: So the amount that's present in wine is highly dependent on the amount of sunlight the grapes experience. Not the vine, but the grapes themselves, And a friend of mine, Steve Price, was the first to note this. In a study way back in the 90s on Pinot Noir, he noted that there was more quercetin in sun exposed Pinot Noir grapes. And that observation has been confirmed many times now in different studies. where sun exposure is correlated with quercetin levels.
[00:04:58] Craig Macmillan: and this is true just for red grapes as opposed to white grapes.
[00:05:02] Andrew Waterhouse: Oh, no, no, there's more in white grapes. But when you make white wine, you throw away the skins. So there's no opportunity to get those materials into the wine. Now, an exception might be orange wine. But I don't know of any data on orange wine.
[00:05:21] Craig Macmillan: Apramita , maybe you can talk about the metabolism part, the biology part. So when people consume alcohol, it's metabolized down certain pathways. Quercetin is also metabolized by the body into other forms?
[00:05:33] Apramita Devi: Yeah, so the pathway for alcohol and quercetin are a bit different, but the location is liver, where it goes. So when people consume alcohol, it goes to the liver and then there are two enzymes which work on the alcohol. So the first enzyme is alcohol dehydrogenase, which convert it into alcohol into acetaldehyde. The acetaldehyde is the like the toxic metabolite in the body and it can have many side effects. That's why body has to get rid of it out of the liver system. So it has a second enzyme which is called the acetaldehyde dehydrogenase. So that convert acetaldehyde dehydrogenase into a non toxic component, which is acetate or acetic system.
[00:06:24] So it comes out of the body. What happens when you consume quercetin along in the body, the quercetin also goes to the liver. Because quercetin adds too much quercetin as such is not good for the body and it has low bioavailability. So liver tag it in the form of quercetin glucuronide and then the body knows that it has to be flushed out of the system. So the interesting part is that when you consume alcohol and quercetin together, You are taking the both the metabolite acetaldehyde and quercetin gluconide in the same location inside the liver. And it gives the quercetin gluconide to interact with the acetaldehyde dehydrogenase enzyme. And that acetaldehyde dehydrogenase enzyme now cannot work efficiently. to convert the acetaldehyde into the acetate. So basically you are building up acetaldehyde in the body and it's not coming out of the system and you are seeing all those negative effects of the acetaldehyde in the form of flushing or headache or not. The other systems like what's like sweating. so we think that there is a correlation between these two pathways, which might be associated in red wine system.
[00:07:47] Craig Macmillan: And how did you design your study?
[00:07:51] Apramita Devi: The first when I talked to Andy, like he told me that he thinks that this system is because of inflammatory pathways and inflammation system. So he was kind of like, there is something in red wine, which is Triggering this kind of pathways or there is some system so, but we were not sure what exactly are those inflammatory system.
[00:08:16] So we went back and saw some literature and we kind of find that there are some studies which told that quercitans inhibit the dehydrogenase enzymes and that what triggered us that okay alcohol is metabolized by these dehydrogenase enzymes. And wine also has these phenolics. So what kind of phenolics, other kinds of phenolics, or what types of phenolics can do this inhibition?
[00:08:45] The method was basically in, was based on having different phenolics, which are present in red wines more compared to white wines, select them. And then just, we find this enzyme kits in the market to do this dehydrogenase. Inhibition tests like you put the test compound and it tells whether the enzyme is the inhibited or not.
[00:09:09] So we just did that in a test tube system, like we added our phenolics with the enzyme, and we saw that which kind of phenolics are inhibiting this enzyme and screening them out. out of all. So while doing that, we screened different types of quercetin, like quercetin glucoside, quercetin galactosides, and other forms.
[00:09:32] Then we also tested other phenolics. I can for all my rest in and other stuff. And we also choose quercetin gluconide because that is the metabolite which is circulating in the body. And then we kind of screen them based on the in the enzyme system and we see how much inhibition is happening there.
[00:09:54] Andrew Waterhouse: Yeah. So what we did was a very basic test to experiment. We didn't test anything on people.
[00:10:01] We basically tested to see which of these compounds could inhibit that enzyme because we knew that if that an enzyme could be inhibited the acetaldehyde would accumulate and you'd end up with people in that condition would end up with Flushing, headaches, as Aparmita said, all kinds of other symptoms.
[00:10:20] Craig Macmillan: And this would vary by person. Different people may have a proclivity to produce more of certain enzymes than others. Is that true?
[00:10:29] Andrew Waterhouse: We don't really have any information about that. That's going to take a lot of more work to test you know, the, the details here. For instance. Some people get red wine headaches and some don't, but we don't know whether, for instance, perhaps their enzymes are more inhibited by quercetin glucuronide, or maybe they're just more sensitive to acetaldehyde.
[00:10:52] So that's going to take, you know, human studies where we measure a bunch of things. And try to figure out, try to sort through the, the details of how this impacts people individually.
[00:11:04] Craig Macmillan: What would a study , with people, investigating this, what would the design be like? How would somebody go about doing that?
[00:11:12] Andrew Waterhouse: Okay. So a human study. Could have a couple different possible designs. The one we'll probably use is we'll simply find two wines, two red wines, one that's low in quercetin and one that's high. And then those will be administered to people who get red wine headaches. We'll give it to them blind, they'll have to agree of course to participate in the study.
[00:11:37] And then we'll see if their experience of headaches is related to the quantity of quercetin. Now, there's some other designs we could imagine using, which might be a little more straightforward, but we're not sure how relevant they would be or whether we could get approval to do this. So, for instance, one approach would be to find a red wine that's low in quercetin and then simply add it.
[00:12:00] Now adding it is tricky for a number of technical reasons. Quercetin itself is very insoluble, so we would have to add what's called a glycoside of quercetin. So we'd have to get our hands on something that would dissolve, et cetera, et cetera. We're not sure we could get approval for that because we're adding a chemical to wine.
[00:12:21] Now, the chemical would probably be classified as a supplement, and so it might be approvable, as it were. And then another very simple experiment, which we thought about a while ago, you can buy quercetin as a supplement in the market. It's readily available.
[00:12:38] So, one possibility is to simply give our subjects a glass of vodka and give them pills that either contain quercetin or a placebo and see if there's a relationship between administration of quercetin and headaches.
[00:12:54] Now the, the quercetin itself, as I mentioned, is very insoluble. So we may have to get these more bioavailable forms of quercetin for that experiment.
[00:13:04] Craig Macmillan: That leads to a wine making question. So, if it's relatively insoluble is quercetin extracted from skins more in the alcohol phase at the end of fermentation?
[00:13:11] Andrew Waterhouse: Yeah. It's, it's, it's extracted fairly quickly because it's in the skin, in the grapes, it's in the form of what are called glycosides. So these, Has the quercetin molecule with the sugar attached. That makes all those forms very soluble.
[00:13:27] Craig Macmillan: Oh, okay. Okay.
[00:13:29] Andrew Waterhouse: There's actually an occasional problem with certain red wines, most commonly Sangiovese, where after bottling the wine has had a large quantity of quercetin glucosides. And after bottling, they break down, the glycosides break down, releasing just a simple a glycone, quercetin, and you get this disgusting looking gooey brown precipitate in the bottle.
[00:13:56] Craig Macmillan: ha
[00:13:57] Andrew Waterhouse: Every few years I know the folks at ETS in Napa get somebody showing up with a bottle of Sangiovese that's got this. Disgusting sludge in it, and they can tell them without analyzing that. Yes, another case, of course, it's in precipitate in the bottom.
[00:14:15] Craig Macmillan: Huh, that's interesting. I believe it was mentioned in the paper that , obviously different growing conditions are going to lead to different levels of quercetin and grapes based on how much sun exposure they have, etc. And that also different winemaking techniques would have an impact.
[00:14:29] If consumers are looking for products if they know they have a headache issue Is it possible they could experiment with different product types? Products that were made with different production methods if they can find that out that might Impact their sensitivity or might impact how often it happens
[00:14:46] Andrew Waterhouse: Yeah, it's a pity that. Consumers wouldn't have information on the level of quercetin. We would very much like to do a study along those lines, but we haven't been able to find any funding for that, just in case somebody wants to support that kind of work, we're happy to work with them. but anyway you know, it hasn't really been an issue for winemakers, so there isn't a lot of data out there.
[00:15:08] There are a few studies that published amounts of quercetin, you know, in wines from different places, but the data is very, very limited and not really useful in providing consumers guidance. The one thing we can say is because, as I mentioned earlier, sun exposure is very important, in general if you look at a particular type of wine, a varietal, say Cabernet or Pinot Noir, that the grapes that are grown on very large vines, will have less sun exposure.
[00:15:39] Essentially if you have a very highly productive vineyard making targeting an inexpensive line, you probably have much more shading of the fruit as a consequence of lower quercetin levels. Compared to a very high end vineyard, usually, the amount of sunlight is very tightly controlled, and one of the reasons for that is that there's very good data showing that wines that are high in quercetin have a better mouthfeel, better texture in the mouth. And it's not clear whether quercetin is directly responsible or whether it's a marker for something else that's produced under those conditions that leads to that. many years ago, we did a study looking at phenolics in Cabernet, and we observed that the very high end Cabernets that we tested were much higher in quercetin than the sort of average price type product.
[00:16:35] And I think that that was true then. It's probably true now that, you know, a very good cabernet is, is made with very tight control of sun exposure. And there is a fair amount, of course, it can't be a complete sun exposure, or they probably get raisins by the end of the harvest, by the time you get to harvest, but there's a very deliberate management of sun exposure in high end wines. And it's for a reason to, get to higher quality product.
[00:17:04] Craig Macmillan: Right, exactly! And, We know that the managed sun exposure, quercetin is a part of it but also it's connected to just total phenolics in general. Lots and lots of different compounds that are, you know, semi related. And I actually wanted to go back Aprametia you identified the quercetin glucuronide as being The highest in the ones that you tested, were there other things in that test and that assay that all were also stood out, maybe not as high as that, but really kind of stuck out as being different than the rest.
[00:17:39] Apramita Devi: Actually, the quercetin gluconide was a standalone as a very high, like it's like 78%. The other things were around in that 30 percent range, so I'm not sure how significant was the impact of that, but there were quercetin glycosides forms, which were like around 30 percent inhibition of the enzyme, but
[00:18:03] all others were very low.
[00:18:04] Craig Macmillan: yeah, so it really stood out basically as it was head and shoulders above it. I would like to put this work into context a little bit. I, I work with the public quite a bit as part of my job and I have for years. And this topic comes up. All the time. This information definitely helps me my goal, when I talk to a consumer that has an issue with, wine headache or whatever it's not that I'm trying to sell them a product as much as it is.
[00:18:29] They want to enjoy wine. They tell me this, they say, Oh, I love to have it. I just can't. Da da da. And then they'll say, it's like sulfites. And then I'll kind of explore that with them a little bit. Like, so can you eat dried fruit? Do you eat canned fruit? Do you have reactions to this or to that? Are you asthmatic?
[00:18:48] Kind of sort that out and go, okay, I don't think maybe that's it. Maybe it's not. The other ones that I just learned about about 10 years ago was a biogenic amines, which made a lot of sense to me in terms of things like histamine reactions. What is your feeling about sulfites is contributing biogenic amines.
[00:19:04] Maybe there's other things we haven't hit on, on this topic. What are your feelings about the, kind of the big picture of what potential for a diagnosing assist?
[00:19:15] Andrew Waterhouse: Why don't you talk about amines
[00:19:16] Craig Macmillan: Yes, please,
[00:19:18] Apramita Devi: Biogenic amines like mostly the histamine and tyramine are the main ones people talk about whenever they come with this headache stuff. So I think because it's formed in the wine during the fermentation process, and there are these spec microbes which can convert the amino acids into this, biogenic amines the histamines are part of inflammatory reactions. People know that in biology and immunology. So it's very easy to be people connected that it might be a reason why people get headache. But what I always focus is like, there are far more other food products, for example, fermented meat products, which has far more higher amount of these biogenic amines. do people get headache if they have something similar with alcohol eating together with alcohol or something like that? But there is no mechanism told till now, they just tell that, oh, since it's histamine and it's related to this inflammatory reactions, it might be the cause. But there is no solid proof that it is the cause.
[00:20:27] so I don't know whether it's there or it might be a pathway or not.
[00:20:33] Craig Macmillan: One of the things that I find fascinating is how we evolve our, Hypotheses about things over time, and somebody has an hypothesis and they test it out, maybe they find something, maybe they don't, but then that kicks off this whole set of what I call naive science making up stories about why.
[00:20:53] It's kind of a just so story. It's like, well, obviously then somebody comes along and checks it and says, Hey, wait a second. And we're no, or if this was true, then that would have to be true. And that's not true. You know, and that kind of thing and how we keep coming around to new ideas, which is what you folks have done, which I think is really, really cool.
[00:21:10] Andrew Waterhouse: I was going to answer your question about sulfites. It's a really big question actually. Partly because sulfites have so much visibility and there's so much concern about it. I think sulfites themselves Have been studied pretty carefully there's one study where if they gave subjects a very high level of sulfites in wine, it was like very small, but statistically significant increase in headaches.
[00:21:39] Or some adverse reaction, but other studies have shown no correlation. By the way, sulfites are antioxidants in case you hadn't heard that. So it seems very unlikely that sulfites by themselves are some sort of bad actor in this regard. Like you, I get these questions all the time. And what I heard so many times was. Oh, it's cheap wine. It gives me a headache.
[00:22:06] Craig Macmillan: Yes.
[00:22:07] Andrew Waterhouse: And have you heard
[00:22:08] Craig Macmillan: I've heard that many times. And then on the opposite side of things, I've heard stuff like, Oh, I get headaches from American wine, but I don't get it from French wine. Or I always get headaches from European wines, but I never from California wine. So I'm trying to figure out, is there something going on?
[00:22:26] Like, can you be allergic to burgundy? You know what I'm saying? Cause I mean, it could be, it could be something about burgundy. It's just stuff going on. And then the opposite. I had a guy who says, no, I don't have any that. But he says I was traveling in France, and we were drinking wine like it was water, and I never had a hangover symptom, and I did it, and I was like, I don't know dude, like I
[00:22:45] Andrew Waterhouse: Yeah. Well, there's, there's one answer to some of this, which is if you're on vacation and you don't have to get up early and you're relaxed and you probably don't get as many headaches.
[00:22:58] Craig Macmillan: Right.
[00:22:59] Andrew Waterhouse: So I think that's a large part of it, especially for Americans visiting Europe. They're on vacation. but I think there is something to the sulfites question. And that is that inexpensive wine often, not always, but often has more bound sulfites.
[00:23:18] Craig Macmillan: Yep.
[00:23:19] Andrew Waterhouse: And this is probably because those grapes have a little bit more mold on them or a lot more mold. And when they get to the crusher, the winemaker goes, Oh, there's mold on these fruits. So we're going to add sulfites to, to take care of the botrytis, right?
[00:23:34] We don't want the fruit to get oxidized and damaged. They had a bunch of sulfites. The consequence of that is that in the finished line, There's a lot more. Bound to SO2, which shows up in the total SO2 number.
[00:23:47] You know what it's bound to?
[00:23:49] Craig Macmillan: No.
[00:23:49] Andrew Waterhouse: It's bound to largely acid aldehyde.
[00:23:52] Craig Macmillan: Really?
[00:23:53] Oh! Well that would make sense. Yeah, that would make sense.
[00:23:56] Andrew Waterhouse: And the, the reason for that is that during the fermentation, the yeast are converting all this sugar the alcohol, but there's an intermediate step which is acetaldehyde.
[00:24:06] Craig Macmillan: Right.
[00:24:07] Andrew Waterhouse: If you have SO2 floating around, as you would if you'd added a lot of it up front, it binds that acetaldehyde before it gets reduced to ethanol, to alcohol. if you start a fermentation with a high level of added SO2, then you will end up with a wine that has more bound acetaldehyde. And that could be a marker, say, of less expensive wine.
[00:24:31] So it's possible that those people are, what they're experiencing is direct ingestion of acetaldehyde, which is being released into the blood and that that's causing them a problem.
[00:24:45] Now, I've looked and looked, and I cannot find any data on what's called absorption of acetaldehyde from wine, or from food for that matter. I keep, I'm going to keep looking,
[00:24:56] but for some reason or other, this hasn't been subject of a published study, although maybe I just haven't been competent enough to find it.
[00:25:05] Craig Macmillan: I doubt that.
[00:25:07] Andrew Waterhouse: Well, sometimes these are, you know, they're very specialized and they're indexed in funny ways. And,
[00:25:13] You know, and the other thing was, you know, when the study came out, I had all these questions. I was talking to this one reporter and she said, well, I can drink natural wine.
[00:25:24] It doesn't give me headaches. And I was like, oh boy, what's this about?
[00:25:27] Craig Macmillan: Yeah.
[00:25:28] Andrew Waterhouse: But thinking about that further when you make natural wine, you don't add any sulfites or at least you're not supposed to, Right. And consequently in the finished wine, the level of acetaldehyde would have to be very low or else it would smell like sherry.
[00:25:41] Craig Macmillan: Right. Right.
[00:25:43] Andrew Waterhouse: And yes, granted, many natural wines have funky smells, but they don't by and large smell like sherry.
[00:25:49] So it's possible that natural wines have in general, Much less acid aldehyde than conventional one. you know, all these questions have brought up some interesting issues, I think, you know, the industry should be looking into you know, these are these issues like how much acid aldehyde Do we want in our wine and how can we reduce it if we want to reduce it?
[00:26:15] I don't think anybody's really looking at that yet. I think that would be a very interesting question to pursue. Oh
[00:26:24] Craig Macmillan: you just, you just reminded me of, of something two things that I, I had forgotten about. One I used to teach like enology for babies, enology for dummies thing for the public. I am in no way qualified other than just experience to do that.
[00:26:39] But I broke it down in that I do that sugar aldehyde, alcohol arrows, and I'd say, okay, this, this acid aldehyde. Remember this one? This one's coming back. We're going to see this again later. So write this one down. We're going to get to that later. And sure enough, now it's just through the body and, and I think breathalyzers work based on that.
[00:27:00] Don't they? It's like density. Something like that. So the aldehyde, they're actually,
[00:27:05] I think so. I got to look that up again, but because by the time it gets to your breath, your body's, Processing it, right? Hugely important. Not just that compound, but aldehyde is just kind of a general well, maybe we should all invest in like some kind of, I don't know, AO unit or wine X ray or something at our house.
[00:27:21] And then we could get the totals and know before we drink it you know, maybe we could figure out if somebody could come up with a consumer friendly, you know, put it in a vial and shake it and it turns blue. Don't drink it kind of thing. I'm just being silly. I don't know.
[00:27:34] Andrew Waterhouse: idea.
[00:27:35] Craig Macmillan: You go to different like wine shops and stuff, and there's all kinds of stirs and additives and strainers and funnels and stuff that are supposed to take things out.
[00:27:45] And I've always really wanted to see what those things do. They do anything or not, or I don't know. I'd like to try it. Finally, is there one takeaway on this topic, this question to both you, one takeaway you'd like people to know, I
[00:27:57] Andrew Waterhouse: well, I think the key thing is that we haven't done any experiments on people yet.
[00:28:03] Craig Macmillan: Right.
[00:28:04] Andrew Waterhouse: And so what we have here is, I would call it a well founded theory,
[00:28:09] Craig Macmillan: Mhmm.
[00:28:09] Andrew Waterhouse: I think people shouldn't rush out and start changing the way they drink yet. They might want to try some experiments. But we don't have the final word yet.
[00:28:20] Craig Macmillan: Right, right.
[00:28:24] Apramita Devi: Same. Yeah. This is just very preliminary study. And we just have a theory out. So we still don't know, like, what happens in the actual body.
[00:28:34] Craig Macmillan: Well, I hope that we can do that.
[00:28:36] Andrew Waterhouse: We're always looking for support for experiments. If anybody wants to support that, get in touch.
[00:28:43] Craig Macmillan: You know, another creative thought that I have when I'm preparing for this is like, you know, , people either get headaches from wine or they don't. If I'm someone who wants to enjoy wine, but gets headaches, I would be really attracted to a product that had a back label if we could make health. statements, which we cannot, that would say now low in quercetin or, you know, headache free, you know, no, we would never get that through TTP, obviously, but but, but, you know, but we went round and round with that on sulfites, you know you know, organic waste, no added sulfites, you know, you can say that.
[00:29:14] Andrew Waterhouse: I think it would be possible to perhaps have a declaration on a bottle about the level of quercetin, whether it's high or low. I suppose. I don't know.
[00:29:24] One company did get a label through that had resveratrol levels on it, but then TTB stopped approving that. So only one company has that approval. But I think in that case the reason for denying the label is that it is a proxy for health claim. Thank you.
[00:29:44] Quercetin, you know, whether it's high or low is really, it's not, it's not making a health claim. We're not claiming that this wine is healthier for you than the other has to do with headaches or not headaches.
[00:29:55] And I don't see that as really a health claim.
[00:29:58] Craig Macmillan: Well, let's just see how this develops. You never know. Let's face it. I mean, we're talking about nutrition. This is August of 2024, the date for this recording. We're talking about having nutritional labeling on wine. Right? Which I think would be a very interesting nutritional label, quite frankly.
[00:30:13] I would, I would love to see that, you know. Zero percent of the RDA of everything, again, at the end of one of my lectures I'd introduce potassium, and at the end I'd say, so how much wine do you have to drink to get your RDA of potassium? You have to drink a gallon and a half of wine a day. So, maybe not a big contributor. Maybe not a big contributor. Where can people find out more about both of you?
[00:30:37] Andrew Waterhouse: Well, I think probably the best starting point would be our LinkedIn pages.
[00:30:43] Craig Macmillan: And those will be in the show notes.
[00:30:45] Andrew Waterhouse: and I do have a website at UC Davis called waterhouse. ucdavis. edu.
[00:30:52] Craig Macmillan: And that will be in there as well. What about you, Apremita?
[00:30:54] Apramita Devi: For me, LinkedIn page.
[00:30:58] And if people want to see about my research or my past research, they can go to my Google Scholar page to
[00:31:05] Craig Macmillan: Awesome. Thank you. Well, thanks so much for being here. Our guests today were Andrew Waterhouse, Professor Emeritus in the Department of Viticulture and Enology at UC Davis, and Apramita Devi, a postdoctoral researcher in viticulture and knowledge at UC Davis. Really interesting work.
[00:31:21] I'm glad that you folks are doing it. I've been a big fan of you, Dr. Waterhouse, for a long time, and now that I've seen your work, I'm a big fan of you. Apremita. You've done some pretty cool stuff in the last five years. So again, thanks. And thank you for listening to Sustainable Wine Growing with Vineyard team.
[00:31:38] Please keep downloading episodes. Please visit the show page. Lots of information there. And we also have a new publication, Understanding Wine Chemistry by Andrew Waterhouse, Gavin Sachs, and David Jeffrey. Is that correct?
[00:31:53] Andrew Waterhouse: That's correct.
[00:31:55] Craig Macmillan: This is out in the world now.
[00:31:57] Andrew Waterhouse: It's just out this month.
[00:31:59] Craig Macmillan: That sounds like a must have.
[00:32:01] Andrew Waterhouse: I agree.
[00:32:03] Craig Macmillan: That sounds like a must have. , I will leave the name out, but there was a very famous book written by a group of folks from CSU Fresno and some collaborators. And I don't have a copy because I bought five copies in my cellar. People stole them every single time. So, this is the same kind of book, folks.
[00:32:20] Maybe buy five copies. And just hand them out to give one to your assistant winemaker. Give one to your cellar master and just say, here, these are yours. I'm keeping my copy. Thank you very much. That's, that's really cool. And again, thanks for being on the podcast.
[00:32:33] Beth Vukmanic: Thank you for listening today's podcast was brought to you by wonderful laboratories. Wonderful laboratories operates two state of the art high throughput laboratories. He's located in Shaffer, California to support pathogen detection and nutrient analysis. The team provides full service support to customers with field sampling. Custom panels and special projects. They're. Customers include pest control advisors, growers, consultants, seed. Companies, backyard gardeners, ranchers, and more.
[00:33:10] Make sure you check out the show notes. To learn more about. Andrew. And Oprah meta. To read a great article about their research. Why do some people get headaches from drinking red wine?
[00:33:19] And if you're looking. Looking for. Some more fun wine at trivia to share at holiday parties this season. Listen into sustainable Winegrowing podcast episode. 74, the spirit of wine.
[00:33:31] If you liked the show, do. It's a big favor by sharing it with a friend subscribing and leaving us a review. You can find all of the [email protected] slash podcast. Podcast. And you can reach us at [email protected] until next time, this is sustainable. Winegrowing with the vineyard team.
[00:33:49]
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[00:00:00] While, the year is nearing its end. There's still a lot of actibity and work ahead with the holidays. This marketing tip. We'll give you ideas for a greener holiday season. Use them in the tasting. Room. And at home. Welcome to Marketing Tip Monday. With sip certified. We know that customers are looking for wines labeled as sustained. Sustainable. While our longer-form episodes help you learn about the latest. Latest science and research for the wine industry. These monthly. Monthly micro podcasts will help you share your dedication to sustainable winegrowing.
[00:00:33] Now let's get into some. Some tips for greener gatherings.
[00:00:37] Consider getting a. A living tree rather than a cut or artificial tree. With the right tree and. The proper care it can survive the holiday season and then be planted on your property.
[00:00:47] Use led lights for decorating your space. They use up to 90%, less energy than traditional incandescent. Bulbs. And can last up to 25 times longer. At an. Average of 30 cents a kilowatt powering 500 incandescent. C9 bulbs, eight hours a day for 30 days. It would cost $294. While the same five. 500 led bulbs would only cost $37.80. That's also sustainable savings for your pocket book. Plus many led lights have features like dimming. Color adjusting and motion detection. So you can customize your look and. Use them for other occasions.
[00:01:27] Do you have holiday events on your calendar?. There are many options for biodegradable plates. Bowls and cutlery. Add them to your compost heap or. Send them to an industrial composting facility. Just be sure not to recycle. Recycle them organic materials can damage recycling equipment. And don't put them in the trash organic waste and landfills could produce methane gas.
[00:01:49] And who. Who doesn't love local goods. Invite local vendors into your retail space. Base. To give your guests some locally sourced gift options bonus. Points. If they use natural or recycled materials. Alternative. you could opt for the gift of a local experience like dinner for two a spa day or certificate to a local shop.
[00:02:08] Oh, the ribbons and bows, but where do they go?
[00:02:11] When it comes to sustainability over the holidays. Days we need to address packaging.
[00:02:15] For those of us who aren't the paper and ribbon collector. At the gift exchange, use. Just wrapping materials can be recycled. Plus some can even. And be composted.
[00:02:24] Make sure. You check out. At the show notes to link to this article called holiday marketing. Marketing tips. To review an awesome chart. To help you gift. Wrap the Greenway. It covers what kinds of wrapping paper? Tissue paper, gift bags, boxes, ribbons, and bows can. Can be recycled. Composted. Plus some creative alternatives like wrapping. Packaging in a tea towel. And making your own paper bows.
[00:02:50] Here's a bonus tip. Check out. Tip number two. In the five sustainable tasting room habits, marketing tip. To learn a few more responsible recycling practices.
[00:03:00] This February. We'll continue the celebrate. Celebration of sustainable wine and we'd love for you to come celebrate with us at reciprocal, February over 30 sip certified brands have. I already joined.
[00:03:12] And you can join to. Share. ReSIProcal club tastings with participating brands to increase your traffic and. Connect with like-minded brands and wine enthusiasts who value sustainability.
[00:03:21] Until next time, this is sustainable. Winegrowing with the vineyard team.
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Resources: *** Tell Your Sustainable Story Online Course *** Apply for SIP Certified Wine Join ReSIProcal February 2025 Marketing Tips eNewsletter Sustainable Story | Print Sustainable Story | Electronic Tips for Greener Holiday Gatherings What's your Sustainable Story? Vineyard Team Programs: Juan Nevarez Memorial Scholarship - Donate SIP Certified – Show your care for the people and planet Sustainable Ag Expo – The premiere winegrowing event of the year Sustainable Winegrowing On-Demand (Western SARE) – Learn at your own pace Vineyard Team – Become a Member -
Want to practice regenerative agriculture? Daniel Rath, Agricultural Soil Carbon Scientist at Natural Resources Defense Council recommends that you start by asking what you want to regenerate. Beneficial practices including integrating livestock, crop rotations, cover cropping, minimizing tillage, increasing diversity, improving soil health, adding organic matter, and reducing external inputs will vary site to site.
A long-term study found that these practices improved above and below ground biodiversity, increased water storage and infiltration, bolstered resilience to climate change, increased carbon and organic matter storage, and, impressively improved human health.
Listen to the end to learn how soil metagenomics has the potential to not only tell us what is living in the soil but how the organisms interact.
Resources: 231: Stacking Regenerative Practices to Create a Healthy Vineyard Daniel Rath Daniel Rath on Google Scholar Daniel Rath on National Resources Defense Council (NRDC) Healthy Soils Playlist (podcast play list) NRDC Regenerative Agriculture 101 page Soil Biodiversity in California Agriculture What the Soil Can Teach Us | Daniel Rath | TEDxBelmopan Wine grape grower perceptions and attitudes about soil health Vineyard Team Programs: Juan Nevarez Memorial Scholarship - Donate SIP Certified – Show your care for the people and planet Sustainable Ag Expo – The premiere winegrowing event of the year Sustainable Winegrowing On-Demand (Western SARE) – Learn at your own pace Vineyard Team – Become a Member Get MoreSubscribe wherever you listen so you never miss an episode on the latest science and research with the Sustainable Winegrowing Podcast. Since 1994, Vineyard Team has been your resource for workshops and field demonstrations, research, and events dedicated to the stewardship of our natural resources.
Learn more at www.vineyardteam.org.
Transcript[00:00:00] Craig Macmillan: Our guest today is Daniel Rath. He is a soil scientist with the Natural Resources Defense Council. And today we're going to be talking about regenerative agriculture. Thanks for being on the podcast, Daniel.
[00:00:10] Daniel Rath: Thanks a lot, Craig. I'm excited to be here.
[00:00:13] Craig Macmillan: We've been trying to find folks to talk about regenerative agriculture because it's a real buzzword right now.
[00:00:18] And it's a buzzword in the vineyard industry, but it's not vineyard specific. This is applying to all sectors of agriculture and globally. This is a big concept now. So that's inspiring and drawing a lot of people, uh, in different directions. But I get different definitions of it. What regenerative agriculture?
[00:00:37] Daniel Rath: Well, first of all, I'll say it's not really surprising that you get a different definition depending on who you talk to because, you know, regenerative agriculture really hasn't been like very specifically defined yet the way I think about it. Part of the reason it's so hard to define is that it's really more of a philosophy and an approach to land management.
[00:00:59] And so, you know, it's taking into acknowledgement the fact that agricultural systems have this complexity. And instead of trying to reduce that complexity, we lean into it. We see what advantages we can get from it. It's a holistic approach. You know, it doesn't just necessarily focus on the environmental impacts, but what are the social impacts?
[00:01:18] What are the economic impacts of agricultural systems? Looking at things like local food systems and connecting farmers to consumers, but also how do we increase soil health? How do we reduce pests and diseases? It's funny. You should bring it up now. The state of California. Just finished a process in of defining regenerative agriculture for their legislative effort.
[00:01:40] Craig Macmillan: Oh
[00:01:41] Daniel Rath: Yeah, there's a draft definition out there have been numerous listening sessions The next one is on august 22nd, but I was part of that committee that tried to like Capture this sort of like ephemeral philosophy and like nail it down without hopefully killing it.
[00:01:57] Craig Macmillan: Uh, and to put a timestamp, the date of this interview is August of 2024.
[00:02:03] So this is new to that point. We'll see how that develops from here. Which is pretty cool, but no, I was not aware of that. That's pretty, pretty interesting. What are some of the specific practices somebody might use? So, philosophically, I'm in alignment. I want to build and protect my soil. I want to protect my community.
[00:02:20] I want to have healthier plants. What are some of the techniques that folks are using around the world to do this?
[00:02:26] Daniel Rath: Well, I will answer your question with a saying that my PhD advisor used to tell me every time I walked into her office, which was that, you know, what is your goal? What is the question that you're trying to ask, right?
[00:02:37] Part of the reason that regenerative agriculture does not have one set definition is that it's going to look very different. different depending on where you are. A regenerative agricultural system in a place that is facing a lot of restrictions on water, low soil organic matter, the practices you use there are going to look very different than say if you have regenerative agriculture in a place that has regular rainfall, has a lot of soil organic matter, very active soils.
[00:03:02] I would say that some of the most commonly mentioned practices are things like integrating livestock into perennial systems, cover crops, crop rotation, increasing the diversity on farm systems, reducing tillage, basically all of these practices that increase soil health, because really increasing soil health is at the the core of what it means to sort of regenerate a plot of land.
[00:03:29] But if you're talking about specific practices, you kind of have to think like, well, what am I trying to regenerate? What are the goals that I want to get out of it? One other interesting topic is the idea of reducing external inputs, not eliminating them entirely, but reducing dependence on things like fertilizers and pesticides, seeing how a that can result in cost savings for farmers, but also Relying on the natural complexity of the system to provide those benefits.
[00:03:58] Craig Macmillan: Yeah, that's always been one of the tenants of sustainable farming is to reduce the number of off farm inputs and reduce the number of farm outputs other than the crop, and that includes things like pollution, erosion, whatever, um, and try to develop a system that's stable in and of itself. Um, and it sounds like there's some things that can contribute to that.
[00:04:18] Um, what about composting? That's another popular topic.
[00:04:21] Daniel Rath: Composting, I forgot to mention that composting really adding organic matter to the soil. A lot of the systems that we've developed over the last few decades are very focused on adding nitrogen, which is important. Nitrogen is a really big limiting nutrient, but we've learned that adding nitrogen on its own is not enough.
[00:04:38] You have to add carbon in there. You have to add other micronutrients that might not be contained in your typical fertilizer mixture. And so yeah, adding compost is a really great way adding organic matter residue crop.
[00:04:53] Craig Macmillan: Again, the inclusion of animals seems to be, um, pretty consistent across different definitions, including mobile cropping systems.
[00:05:00] In permanent crops that can be a little tricky. So like in vineyards, I have heard of folks that were grazing goats and sheep in season for the most part. Folks will plant a cover crop in the winter and then maybe they'll come through with some sheep or some goats in the springtime. I guess my question is, when I read other things and they talk about having animals as part of the system, I see like herds of cattle, which are generating a lot of manure.
[00:05:25] And I can go, yeah, I, I bet that's doing a lot, but your smaller ruminants, in your opinion, I mean, can they contribute enough in a, in a, a seasonal, uh, past to, to make a difference?
[00:05:39] Daniel Rath: Yeah, this, that's a really good point. I think the short answer is, yeah, I think they do. And so the example you gave is, I think the one I would have used, right, is that planting cover crops in between these sort of like, vines that are there for a long time, and then using ruminants to terminate those cover crops and to convert it into manure and urine, which was a great source of nitrogen.
[00:06:00] When I was at UC Davis doing my PhD, we had a couple experiments on sheep terminating cover crops and goats terminating cover crops. And you could see the benefits in the soil, as long as you had those like livestock ruminants being on the plot.
[00:06:15] Craig Macmillan: That leads to another question. You know, I've got the philosophy now.
[00:06:19] I believe in the philosophy. I believe that I can actually improve the soils. One of the things I've always been a little suspicious of with regenerative agriculture is the idea of regeneration. I have a hard time kind of making sense of that in my mind in agricultural systems because things are leaving.
[00:06:36] And certain crops are not big miners. Wine grapes are kind of famous for not really mining the soil that much and they can grow in very poor soils Doesn't mean you don't want to build those soils, but if I'm looking to detect what we would call regeneration, what kinds of Variables might I be looking at and what are the kinds of things that I might actually be able to get some metrics on?
[00:07:00] Where I can say yes, this program seems to be working This is making a difference or I'm not seeing the results that I would like Maybe I should make a shift and try something different
[00:07:09] Daniel Rath: Yeah, that's also a really good question. So I think there are actually two really interesting questions in what you just said.
[00:07:15] The first one is, what do you measure? And again, it depends on your question, but very often the things that we will measure will be things like soil organic matter, right? We will be looking at measurements such as nutrient balance. So how much nitrogen is soil's organic matter, what are the nitrate and phosphorus levels in the soil for wine grapes?
[00:07:36] I know you don't want it to be like too fertile because it is good to stress those grapes out a little bit to get a high quality product. You look at things like drainage and water storage. If you see better infiltration on plots, if you don't see water ponding quite as much. One thing that is becoming more common is tracking microbial indicators, right?
[00:07:56] And so part of the reason that we do that is that microbes are like early indicators. They will change faster than the soil organic matter content. And so they can give you an idea of where you're headed and whether or not it's a direction you want to be heading in. I can, you know, apply to stuff like pest and disease too.
[00:08:15] Craig Macmillan: This is a great one because I've been working on this for the last couple of years. What am I looking for? I, uh, there's a bunch of different tests that you can do. There's a bunch of different things you can look at. If I'm trying to get a sense of what's happening with the cell microbiome, what kind of testing might I be interested in doing?
[00:08:30] What kinds of things might I specifically be looking for?
[00:08:34] Daniel Rath: There have been a lot of advances in the last, you know, decade or so looking at this. One of the biggest areas that there have been advancements is tracking the incidence of pests and diseases, right? And so, you know, that is a really good one. If you're worried or, you know, concerned about a specific pest, there are often really good methods to test for that.
[00:08:52] You can also be looking at biological tests that look at functions of interest. So say your goal is to reduce nitrogen application on your plot. There are measurements that you can make of nitrogen release from organic matter by microbes and that will give you a really good idea or, you know, a fairly good idea of maybe how much nitrogen this soil is already supplying.
[00:09:17] California is also really interested in this. So another thing, there's a soil biodiversity report that came out about a year ago in which the CDFA asked us this very question. They were like, if we were going to measure soil biology across California for a number of different purposes, what would we do?
[00:09:32] We had 15 scientists that have really been working on this for a long time. We all sat down and like, how do we capture the thought process and thinking that goes into this? into selecting the right microbial indicator because there are a lot of them and they're not all easy to interpret.
[00:09:47] Craig Macmillan: Are those recommendations out there now?
[00:09:49] Daniel Rath: I would say the, the report is out and in the report we, you, we have a couple examples. We're really hoping that the California Department of Food and Ag will sort of expand on those recommendations for more like, sort of like a targeted approach. Really what we did is we used that nitrogen example as an example.
[00:10:10] It's like this is how you would do it, but really the devil is in the details. What is the specific area you're looking at? What is like the question you're looking to answer? The biodiverse report has at least like the thought process, what are the things you should be looking for?
[00:10:25] Craig Macmillan: So we've been talking about kind of like more short term.
[00:10:27] What about long term? You have some experience, I believe, in long term agricultural research. Like, I think you did a study that was like a 25 year retrospective, if you will, of the health of a particular farm. In the long term, in the longer range, What kinds of benefits should we expect? We've talked about pest and disease resistance, maybe water status.
[00:10:51] What kinds of slow changes might we be looking for that we might see that would give us some confidence that this is working?
[00:10:58] Daniel Rath: Sure. I mean, this is an example of why long term experiments are so great because. They're the only really way for us to get at this question. But you can expect things like improved biodiversity on, um, especially above ground biodiversity, below ground biodiversity.
[00:11:15] That is a process that takes a long time. You can see things like improved water storage, improved water infiltration. You can see You know, if you're talking about the ultimate long term metric resilience, right, how do our agricultural systems respond to the climate changes that are already occurring and, you know, building that resilience means relying on this like complex biological network that really sustains our plants right now.
[00:11:46] Increased carbon and organic matter storage is another really good one. And so, you know, over time you see all of these environmental benefits and along with that comes social benefits. We see improved human health. We see improved connectivity between farms and the communities nearby. Improved sort of farm worker health and safety.
[00:12:07] All of these things are a little bit longer term, but they are all one of some of the goals and some of the benefits we see from regenerative systems.
[00:12:16] Craig Macmillan: I want to drop back to one of the practices because I've talked about this quite a bit with folks. I want to get your take on it. No till or minimal till.
[00:12:24] Or, uh, I talked to one person that said, uh, avoid excessive tillage. And the question that came back was, what the heck is that? What's excessive? You know, what, if I drag the disc through here one time, is that excessive? And this may apply to other crops that you've worked with. What role does tillage have in this process, in these systems?
[00:12:45] Because one school of thought that I'm familiar with is, okay, we grow these cover crops, we terminate them with sheep, it's great, but we may still want to incorporate that material into the soil. So that it breaks down and gets in there. Then there's another school of thought that says, No, don't do that.
[00:13:03] Don't touch it. Leave it alone. Let the system do what it normally does. And then there's a third school of thought that's like, well, I can't do that forever. Floors get too bumpy. Um, things need to be reset. Or I need to plant cover crops. So I need to set a seed bed. And again, you can draw from other cropping systems on this.
[00:13:21] What is your feelings about the effect of tillage on the soil microbiome and soil health discrimination?
[00:13:26] Daniel Rath: No, no till has been a really hot topic for quite a while. It came about when the NRCS was first started looking to reduce the impacts of a dust bowl and realizing that tillage was over tillage was a major cause of that.
[00:13:41] And so when you are looking at no tillage, there are very clear benefits. There's increased plant root presence, decreased erosion, better soil structure formation, a potential for better infiltration. But you have to wear that against the. benefits of tillage. I mean, it has very clear benefits too. It helps to keep weed and pest populations under control.
[00:14:03] It makes it a little bit easier, especially in annual cropping systems for roots to establish. Like you said precisely, it's a better way for incorporating organic matter into the soil. My point of view is that I think tillage is a valuable tool in the farmer's toolbox, right? And that what is over tillage is going to really depend on where you are.
[00:14:24] If you're on a slope, probably less tillage is better because again, you don't want that top soil to be washed off. If you're on sort of like a flat plain and you know, you know, you're tilling to establish a crop, then it's probably not a big deal to have one or two tillage passes, at least from the erosion standpoint.
[00:14:41] What we do know is that no till has also been recommended as a way to increase soil carbon. There's still, I think, a little bit of back and forth on that. At least we have seen is that no till increases soil carbon at the top. Part of the soil really doesn't increase at the bottom. So it's more of a redistribution of carbon again There are really clear benefits to tillage and you know There's a reason that people have been doing it for a long time
[00:15:07] Craig Macmillan: kind of what I'm hearing I think this is a really great message is it's another tool.
[00:15:11] It's a tool that we don't have to throw away But it is one that we should think about how we use it. I've, I've actually started to think about tillage the same way I think about, uh, pesticides and fertilizers. Where it's, it's a question of what benefit am I going to get from this? Do I need to do it?
[00:15:28] Are there other things that I could do? And then you put that all into your calculator in your brain and, and try to sort it out. And I've had some very interesting conversations as how different people kind of sorted those things out. So I think that's a great point. That leads me to another question that I just thought of.
[00:15:42] And so the role of synthetic fertilizers, for instance. The synthetic fertilizers have been pointed to, and I think accurately so, as driving land degradation in many cases, especially the overuse of nitrate based fertilizers. You also have environmental impacts in terms of pollution, potentially. Is there a role for conventional fertilizers in regenerative agriculture?
[00:16:05] Daniel Rath: Yeah, well, that's a real hot button topic there. Yeah.
[00:16:10] Craig Macmillan: Hey, we go, we go for deep water on the show. Inquiring minds want to know. Hey,
[00:16:16] Daniel Rath: that's, that's a real good question. Honestly, that's a question that I has been taking up a lot of my professional time recently. Like you said, it's not a secret. We are seeing a lot of negative environmental impacts from Over application of fertilizers that includes nitrate pollution in groundwater that applies to pesticides as well.
[00:16:36] You know neonic pesticides have had major problems with insect populations. I think that exactly What you said you need to sort of weigh the costs and benefits Of these like particular practices and you know In my work in my phd talking to farmers the sort of farmer calculus that occurs in like You know, in the minds of the folks that I work with is so complex.
[00:17:00] There are so many factors that you have to balance. One thing to be aware of is that we are applying too much nitrogen fertilizer now, and that's pretty clear from like the negative environmental impacts that we've seen. And so it's less of an idea of like. Like how do we eliminate nitrogen fertilizer and more like how do we make sure that that fertilizer gets into the plant?
[00:17:23] You know, how do we match that fertilizer application to what the plant actually needs instead of over applying, right? How do we keep it on the plot? Because it is expensive. No one wants it to be running off into the environment,
[00:17:36] Craig Macmillan: right?
[00:17:37] Daniel Rath: One of the things that has really come across to us is when we talk to folks about nitrogen fertilizer application, there are yield benefits, but very often it's also a risk management strategy.
[00:17:50] You want to apply enough nitrogen fertilizer so that if conditions are ideal, you can take advantage of them. Really and truly, there have got to be better, less environmentally intensive solutions. impactful risk management strategies. You know, that includes looking at the way that we incentivize crops, looking at the way that we handle crop insurance, looking at the crop choices.
[00:18:13] If you're in a area that has a lot of potential for agricultural runoff, it may be better to grow crops that do not require as much nitrogen, corn is very greedy, or to put systems in place that reduce that nitrogen runoff, cover cropping, riparian buffers, All of these things are like great ideas to get to the underlying goal, which is reducing the need for nitrogen fertilizer.
[00:18:39] Craig Macmillan: That's perfect. Gosh, we just keep getting more variables, don't we?
[00:18:42] Daniel Rath: Oh my gosh, I assure you that's
[00:18:46] Craig Macmillan: And speaking of more variables, I want to switch topics now. This is great, background graded by some regenerative agriculture. I know that I now have a better sense of what the philosophy and the practices are.
[00:18:56] However, you've also worked in the area of soil metagenomics and metagenomes. And this has come up in other interviews that I've done around soil health with soil microbiologists. What is soil microgenomics and where are we at and where are we going and what can we do with this and what's all the exciting stuff coming down the pipeline?
[00:19:19] But first of all, what, what is it?
[00:19:21] Daniel Rath: When you talk about soil metagenomics, in a teaspoon of soil, I'm sure you've heard the statistics somewhere, right? In a teaspoon of soil, there's like a billion microbes and like so much fungal hyphae. And inside each one of those cells is DNA. That are basically the instructions for life for those different cells.
[00:19:40] What we do in soil metagenomics is that you extract the DNA from a soil sample. And then the most complex, insane puzzle you've ever seen. We try to reassemble them, right? Right. And so like that is only possible because of the advances we've made in computing over the last few decades. And I get, you know, the national labs have really like pushes forward.
[00:20:03] You need a really powerful supercomputer to do it. Once you've done that, you have this sort of unprecedented ability to glimpse what is happening in the soil at a scale that we've never been able to before. And so that's part of the reason that people are really excited about it is because it gives us a window into like this.
[00:20:24] previously unknown black box of how microbes work and interact in the soil. I worked on that during my PhD at UC Davis, looking at like how metagenomes changed in farming systems over 25 years.
[00:20:37] Craig Macmillan: So I have always been looking for the work that I do, looking for what are the variables that I can measure and what's going to give me a number that's going to tell me what's going on.
[00:20:46] At one point I hit upon soil respiration, and I was talking to a soil ecologist and she said, well that's fine, but that tells you how much life is there, but it doesn't tell you whether it's good guys or bad guys. And then dove in to a whole nother level of, Oh yeah, I hadn't thought about, oh yeah, you're right.
[00:21:05] Oh, and then those guys prey on those guys, and then this happens over here. Oh wow, yeah, you're right. And then I got kind of hooked on the um, The Haney test, which is, I think, kind of falling out of fashion now, which again, people were throwing rocks at that, you know, and I think that when Haney first came up with that, that was something, it was like, we need something, and it would prove to be useful, I think, but I don't think that's as popular or gives us the kind of dimension that we really need anymore, at least that's what I'm told.
[00:21:34] With metagenomics, we're going to be able to tell not simply quantities, but we're going to be able to tell possibly down to the level of genus, maybe even species of who's, who's down there, which could be really, really important because like pseudomonas, for instance, there's certain pseudomonas that are, um, pathogenic and there's others that are beneficial.
[00:21:56] And so we kind of need to figure out who's who and what's what is, is that on the horizon? Maybe it's 10 years out or more, but is that on the horizon?
[00:22:04] Daniel Rath: Probably a little further out than that. A
[00:22:06] Craig Macmillan: little further out? Okay.
[00:22:07] Daniel Rath: I'll try and give you an example here. So, one of the things that we get when we pull out all this DNA is we get sort of relative abundances of different types of organisms, right?
[00:22:18] It's sometimes quite difficult to get to the absolute abundance of organisms because We're really looking at, like, proportions of DNA, but that doesn't really tell you, like, are there, like, massive amounts of this organism present in the soil. You just have a relative idea. When it comes to metagenomics, there's a lot of promise in being able to say, Oh, look, we've seen these genes that, like, allow you to fix nitrogen.
[00:22:43] And we found these genes that are associated with these, like, pests. And that's a really good idea, a really good indicator of, like, But there's another level to it. And that's really, I think what one of the like exciting parts is, is that it's not just the genetic potential that matters. It's the interactions between organisms that is quite hard to pull out.
[00:23:05] So to your example, you could have pseudomonas, you could have quite high levels of pseudomonas. Do you have a. predator that keeps those pseudomonas populations under control, right? Because if you do, then you might not be seeing a lot of disease, like presence in the soil, even though you have like relatively high amounts of it.
[00:23:25] And so understanding these interactions is sort of the next level in actually getting practical, actionable information out of these metagenomes. And we're, we're still. Teasing that apart. So really, when I talk about metagenomes, it's about potential. What is the potential for things to happen? But it does not actually mean that is what is going to happen.
[00:23:46] Craig Macmillan: Right, exactly. And so the commercialization of this technology is quite a ways out.
[00:23:51] Daniel Rath: Yeah. I mean, there are companies that are working on it right now. Again, this, it's a, this innovation is really, we're going to need to like be iterating towards success here, but really a lot more sort of research and work is required, especially on these interactions, thinking about like how they fit together.
[00:24:10] And I personally think that it's a useful indicator. I've given a talk on these like. Soil test before the real power hard part comes when you're trying to interpret right when you have a scale that says like based on these abundances There's X percent chance that you will have a disease or X percent chance that you will be able to cycle nitrogen better That's really hard to like say at this point in my opinion,
[00:24:35] Craig Macmillan: right?
[00:24:35] Right. Well, at least we're moving in the right direction. I think
[00:24:37] Daniel Rath: we absolutely are and honestly The, the best thing to compare metagenome test is your own soil five years ago. It gives you an unprecedented look into how your soil has changed and progressed depending on whatever practices you've applied.
[00:24:51] Craig Macmillan: Right, right. Going back to regenerative agriculture, is there one thing, piece of advice, idea, one thing that you would like growers to take away on this topic?
[00:25:02] Daniel Rath: Yeah, I think that one main thing is that this is not just about one specific environmental impact. This is about thinking about how we farm, how we grow food, what is our relationship To both farm ecosystems and agricultural ecosystems.
[00:25:21] You know, I think there's this idea that natural ecosystems and agricultural ecosystems, they cannot coexist. And I think that over time we're starting to see that maybe that's not true. We can encourage biodiversity. We can encourage sort of these complex natural processes on farms. And indeed they make the farms more resilient.
[00:25:41] more productive, we get more benefits from that. And so just in a way that like natural ecosystems evolve, I think that farming systems are also evolving and growing. And to us, regenerative agriculture is about bringing all farmers, no matter where they are, along on this journey towards sort of more sustainable, environmentally safe agro ecosystems.
[00:26:05] Craig Macmillan: That's exactly the word I was going to use, is uh, is we think more about an agroecosystem as part of a much larger system, um, which is what ecology is kind of all about. We can look at the ecology of a pond, but then we can also look at what role that pond plays in the forest, and we can look at how the forest plays in the landscape and we can just keep going depending on what level you want to do it at.
[00:26:27] And I think looking at our farms as part of a larger ecological system and an ecological system in and of itself also I think is a huge philosophical move. Absolutely right. Where can people find out more about you?
[00:26:39] Daniel Rath: The NRDC website is a great place to start. We have a number of different resources. We published a report on regenerative agriculture where we interviewed farmers from across the U S at least for California specific stuff.
[00:26:50] The California department of food and agriculture, again, is, has this regenerative agriculture definition process that's being carried out. As of this date in August, 2024, I also have a personal website that I update infrequently.
[00:27:04] Craig Macmillan: Well, there's something on there. Yeah. So, yeah, and if you can share those links with us, that would be fantastic.
[00:27:10] Our guest today has been Daniel Rath. He is a soil scientist with the Natural Resources Defense Council. Thanks for being on the podcast, Daniel.
[00:27:18] Daniel Rath: Hey, absolutely. It's been quite a pleasure, Craig.
Nearly perfect transcription by Descript
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[00:00:00] Beth Vukmanic: Have you ever. Wondered do third-party certifications matter to consumers?
[00:00:05] Welcome to marketing tip Monday with SIP Certified. We know that consumers are looking for wines labeled as sustainable. While our longer form episodes help you learn about the latest science. And research for the wine industry, these twice monthly micro podcasts. will help you share your dedication to sustainable winegrowing.
[00:00:24] If you've wondered about third-party. Certifications. You're not alone. This question has. I also crossed the university of Portland's Sam Holloway's mind. In this week's marketing tip learn about Holloway's qualitative. Research findings. And what they mean for your sustainable wine brand.
[00:00:40] Holloway was interested in learning. How supply chain certifications are perceived by consumers. Impact purchasing decisions. And impact brand loyalty. In interviews and focus group discussions, his participants revealed that they were more likely to trust products bearing. Recognized certifications.
[00:01:00] They viewed certified products as offering a higher value. And they were more willing to pay a premium for certified products. After coding and analyzing participant transcripts Holloway notes, that certifications quote. Enhanced brand loyalty by aligning with consumers ethical values. And beliefs. End quote.
[00:01:20] While, certified products were associated with increased. Brand loyalty. Holloway's participants noted that lack of transparency could lead to skepticism. And diminished trust in brands with. Certifications. But there's an easy solution. transparency and clear communication remedy these issues before they arise.
[00:01:39] Holloway's participants also emphasized stringent standards and third party verification as important factors. That enhanced their trust.
[00:01:48] By sharing your story, you can connect with your guests over shared values. And spread awareness of sustainable wine operations like yours, that work. To protect the people and the planet.
[00:01:58] And if your SIP Certified. You can add the SIP Certified logo to your wine labels for any wine made with at least 85% SIP. Certified fruit, whether that's estate or purchased. Check out the links in the show notes. To get your wine certified today.
[00:02:13] Until next time, this is sustainable. Winegrowing with the vineyard team.
Nearly perfect transcript by Descript.
Resources: *** Tell Your Sustainable Story Online Course *** Apply for SIP Certified Wine Join ReSIProcal February 2025 Marketing Tips eNewsletter Sustainable Story | Print Sustainable Story | Electronic What's your Sustainable Story? Vineyard Team Programs: Juan Nevarez Memorial Scholarship - Donate SIP Certified – Show your care for the people and planet Sustainable Ag Expo – The premiere winegrowing event of the year Sustainable Winegrowing On-Demand (Western SARE) – Learn at your own pace Vineyard Team – Become a Member -
Monitoring vine nutrition is critical for pest and water stress resilience and the efficient production of quality grapes. Jenny Garley, Chief Science Officer at NEWAGE Laboratories discusses the differences between SAP analysis and tissue tests. SAP measures real time nutrient availability in vascular tissue. While tissue tests look at the nutrients stored in the leaf; some maybe available but most are not. Learn how SAP analysis can improve your nutrient management program, from reducing nitrogen inputs to managing trace elements for optimal plant nutrition.
Resources: 115: Examining Plant Nutrient Mobility with SAP Analysis Grape growers turn to sap sampling to monitor crop NEWAGE Laboratories – SAP Analysis The Difference Between Leaf Tissue and Sap Analyses The Grower’s Guide to Plant Sap Analysis Vineyard Team Programs: Juan Nevarez Memorial Scholarship - Donate SIP Certified – Show your care for the people and planet Sustainable Ag Expo – The premiere winegrowing event of the year Sustainable Winegrowing On-Demand (Western SARE) – Learn at your own pace Vineyard Team – Become a Member Get MoreSubscribe wherever you listen so you never miss an episode on the latest science and research with the Sustainable Winegrowing Podcast. Since 1994, Vineyard Team has been your resource for workshops and field demonstrations, research, and events dedicated to the stewardship of our natural resources.
Learn more at www.vineyardteam.org.
Transcript[00:00:00] Beth Vukmanic: Monitoring grape vine nutrition is critical for pest and water, stress resilliance and the efficient production of quality grapes. Welcome to sustainable. Winegrowing with the vineyard team. Where we bring. You the latest in science of research for the wine industry.
[00:00:19] I'm Beth Vukmanic executive director. Since 1994 vineyard team has brought you the latest science-based practices. Experts growers and wine industry tools. Through both. In-field. And online education so that you can grow your business. Please. Raise a glass with us as we cheers to 30 years.
[00:00:38] In today's podcast Craig Macmillan, critical resource manager at Niner wine estates with a long time. Sip certified vineyard and the first ever set certified winery speaks. Speaks with Jenny Garley chief science officer at new age. Laboratories. She discusses the differences between SAP analysis. Alesis and tissue testing. SAP measures real. Time, nutrient availability in the vascular tissue. While. Tissue tests. Look at nutrients stored in the leaf. Some may be available, but most are not. Learn how SAP. Analysis can improve your nutrient management program from reducing nitrogen inputs to managing trace elements for optimal plant. Nutrition.
[00:01:21] Do you want to be more connected with the viticulture industry, but don't know where to start. Become. I'm a member of the vineyard team. Get access to the latest science-based. Practices experts, growers and wine industry tools through both in-field and online education so that you can grow your business. Visit vineyard team.org. And choose grower or business. Business.
[00:01:43] To join the. Community of sustainable wine growers today now let's listen in
[00:01:47] Craig Macmillan: our guest today is Jenny Garley. She is chief science officer at New Age Laboratories. And today we're going to talk about plant sap analysis and the idea of nitrogen conversion efficiency percentage. Welcome to the podcast, Jenny.
[00:02:09] Jenny Garley: Thank you. Actually, thank you for having me back in your team. It's always lovely to speak with you guys and be a part of this.
[00:02:19] Craig Macmillan: Yeah, we're glad you could come back. This is really great. I've heard about sap analysis in the past, a long time ago, and didn't really know anything about it because I was a dinosaur and when I was farming, I just did what I'd always done, what people told me to do, basically. That is, monitoring the nutritional status of vines is critical, obviously, for making fertilizer decisions, but also for making sure that they're happy and healthy.
[00:02:39] You know, a vine that's in good balance is going to be resilient, going to tolerate different kinds of stresses, as well as basically be efficient. You know, it's going to produce a crop successfully. And with sustainability in mind in particular, our fertilizer decisions need to be directed. Now, traditionally, um, growers have used leaf tissue analysis of leaves and petioles, usually in the spring or at brazen.
[00:03:03] Leaf sap analysis is another way of monitoring plant nutritional status. It's a very, very different way of going about it. What is the difference between the two methods?
[00:03:10] Jenny Garley: I'm really glad you asked, because everybody asks this question, and it's very, very important, actually. Even though people use SAP and tissue sampling interchangeably, they are actually quite different from one another. So SAP measures the nutrient availability of the nutrients flowing in the vascular tissue, which is It's basically the xylem and phloem.
[00:03:34] It provides a real time analysis of the nutrients that are available in the plant. And that is really one of the most important takeaways between sap and tissue, because tissue looks at the nutrients that are in the brick and mortar of the leaf that have gone into the leaf. Formation and development, the total nutrients, both available but mostly unavailable.
[00:04:04] So those are huge differences there. Other differences is that tissue is taken from a singular aged leaf, just one. And then it's placed in a paper bag because that sample needs to be dehydrated. And then it needs to be ground, and then it needs to be ashed, and then it uses strong acid to form that analysis.
[00:04:31] For SAP analysis, they only use linear pressure. No heat, no acid, no dehydration. Sap analysis, you need to sample a new yet fully developed leaf and an older yet functional leaf. And that is two points. And when you measure two points on a vine, that can give you mobility. And that is the second, uh, large difference between sap and tissue, is that one, sap gives you mobility.
[00:05:04] And that it gives you available nutrients. Tissue gives you total nutrients from a singular age leaf. The way the analysis is done, there's heat, there's grinding, there's ash, and there's acid. What you lose in that is you lose, amongst many things, is sugar. No mobility.
[00:05:27] Craig Macmillan: And when you're talking about BRICs, you're talking about carbohydrates that are in the SAP. So there's things that you can learn using SAP analysis that you wouldn't be able to learn using traditional, um, tissue analysis.
[00:05:36] Jenny Garley: We're talking about leaf bricks, which is carbohydrates and soluble nutrients. When we're talking about bricks of the berry, of the grape, that's almost all sugar and quite different than a leaf brick. Thanks for bringing that up.
[00:05:50] Craig Macmillan: So there's advantages then, because of the information that you get. What are the differences in terms of how you might interpret results from one to the other? Where, what I'm getting at is, let's say I've been doing traditional tissue analysis for, you know, ever. And then I go, yeah, the SAP analysis thing sounds pretty cool.
[00:06:08] Am I just starting over? Is there any way I can connect the dots between the past and the present and make predictions about the future?
[00:06:16] Jenny Garley: That's a good question. And we have people trying to do that all the time. Again, tissue is total nutrient analysis available and unavailable. SAP is what is available right now. So. Taking both tests, a lot of people do that, being able to equate them, that is different, they both give you different answers.
[00:06:41] I wouldn't say starting over, I would just say giving more information, giving you another layer, a deeper understanding. Is how I would, I would put that I would just say you can only go so far with tissue and would you like to have a deeper understanding? Would you like to try to cut back on nitrogen?
[00:07:03] Are you thinking that there could potentially be? An excess of nitrogen somewhere in your fertilizer program. SAP analysis can help you with that just as much as it can help you look at hidden hungers and or deficiencies. So if you want to talk about interpretation of SAP, we'll keep with the example of nitrogen since that's, um, the topic a lot.
[00:07:28] Of today, nitrogen is highly flow mobile, and so when you see a physical deficiency on the vine, that means there's in nitrogen, that means there's been a prolonged nitrogen deficiency, and you see that yellowing in the older leaves, which is due to decreased chlorophyll synthesis. SOP analysis, taken early, can help you see those deficiencies in the report long before a physical symptom occurs.
[00:08:01] Gives you time. SOP analysis gives you time. Some time, so the reason why SAP analysis can show you that is because again, we take a new yet fully functional leaf and an old yet viable leaf. So on a SAP report, when there is higher amounts of nitrogen in the new leaf as compared to the older leaf. That means those vines are trying to meet the greater demand in the new leaf.
[00:08:30] They're not being given enough nitrogen, or they're not being able to take it up. So they're having to strip it out of the older leaves to meet that demand. And when that nitrogen moves out of the old leaf to the new leaf, that triggers a deficiency. That you can see on a report many times before that older leaves turn yellow.
[00:08:53] Craig Macmillan: Which reminds me of something is the, what is the best timing to take samples for SAP analysis?
[00:08:59] Jenny Garley: Again, great question. A lot of people like to think of sap, again, like tissue. And so they want to take just one or two samples. But sap is movement. It's flowing. It's nutrient uptake. Therefore, sap analysis is really made To be taken throughout the season and if you want a minimum amount if you're going to graph the nutrients over a season and really trying to Say cut back on nitrogen or say potassium.
[00:09:33] You're going to need to have to graph that three points is the minimal amount of Data that you need to create a graph. So the minimum would be three I really like to say five. You can always cut back When the starting point usually for somebody that has never been involved in self analysis before would be a new leaf only.
[00:09:59] And the reason I say that, you won't be able to see mobility, you will be able to see. cation and anion imbalances. And if you have a field with historical differences, um, than, than your other, than your other vineyards or problem areas, I highly recommend taking that about fifth leaf down on a brand new, in, in the springtime.
[00:10:24] Because if you have a problem that you're trying to look at, Fighting it early is really the only thing that you can do. Waiting all the way until flower many times is, is too late to try to fight a deficiency and especially a toxicity. Really difficult to take the nutrients out of the plant.
[00:10:46] Craig Macmillan: On the other end of the, uh, shoot, shall we say. The last fully functioning leaf, without like a Li Cor device or something like that, how can I pick which one of these older leaves is still really a functional leaf? And by that, do you mean in its full photosynthetic capacity? Because you've got what, it's about what, 40 days?
[00:11:09] Um, is where the peak is? Something like that? Is it, are there visual signs? Is there something textural about it? Is there color about it that I can go, oh, I need to go five leaves up, or? Four leaves up, or whatever.
[00:11:21] Jenny Garley: We provide pictures and protocols for taking a sap analysis, especially for vines. We have a beautiful picture of a vineyard, a vine, and where to take your new and your old leaf. Many times those older leaves are thicker. They're definitely darker in color than the new leaf, but we don't want to have a lot of crunchy edges.
[00:11:45] And the reason I say that is because sap analysis, again, is a liquid, and if you send in leaves or somebody sends in leaves that looks like they've been raked up off the ground, that's essentially going to be a tissue test, not a sap analysis. That would be considered dead weight. We need about 90 to 100 grams per sample.
[00:12:11] And if you. sent in a sample with a whole bunch of yellowing, crunchy leaves. That weight doesn't matter because we won't be able to extract any volume from it. So you'll need to go one to two up. That's why we say oldest yet viable leaf. We like to have some moisture in there. We need to be able to extract, um, a volume of sap from the vascular bundles.
[00:12:40] So in a vineyard on a. Absolutely brand new, very healthy vineyard that the old yet viable leaf could be the oldest leaf, but on an older vineyard, maybe diseased, fighting something, having trouble taking up nutrients, maybe have some root issues, that oldest viable leaf might be the third up from the oldest leaf.
[00:13:07] Because we do need a viable green leaf with moisture in it.
[00:13:15] Craig Macmillan: Yeah, I'm kind of thinking about, um, the directions are good, and you have, uh, some resources to help. I'm also now thinking about, like, just touching, squeezing, breaking some of those older leaves. You can pop them off real easy. There's already an incision started, and you squeeze it, and there's nothing there.
[00:13:29] And then other ones you can take, and they're nice and green, and you can rub them in your hands, and your hands turn green. You know, and you go, okay, that's probably the one that's gonna work. It's easy enough to do. So we're talking about nitrogen, but also you mentioned something else that made me think of something, and that is, what about other nutrients, including like, micronutrients?
[00:13:44] Do those show up in SAP analysis, or is this just for nitrogen?
[00:13:48] Jenny Garley: Absolutely. We have a whole trace element. area on a report. It goes in alphabetical order from aluminum, which is actually toxic. It's a heavy metal. We do provide that analysis for you going all the way down to zinc. The majority of trace elements are semi mobile to non mobile except molybdenum and nickel.
[00:14:15] Those are mobile, but they're in very, very, very, very small quantities. So reading those on a SAP analysis is reading the parts per million. And not necessarily comparing the new to the old.
[00:14:29] Craig Macmillan: So I can use this to make micronutrient decisions. You know, traditionally we take, um, Petio samples around Bloom set and then make decisions for applying some micros a month or so later, which has always been interesting to me because they need the micros earlier than that, but that's always been the way that was like, you just can't, well, okay, let's put it on there and hope for, hope for some, something next year, but that's the way we've always done it, it seems like we're kind of hoping that there'll be something there next year.
[00:14:53] Now, SAP analysis, you had mentioned you can do quite early. So might I be able to do SAP analysis well before Bloom? Like you mentioned, like maybe once I have four leaves and I'm still in the elongation stage, the cluster, and get my readings and be able to make my micro decisions a little earlier.
[00:15:10] Jenny Garley: Absolutely. Absolutely. And what you brought up is taking a traditional tissue test later after flower or even the veraison. You're right. You've missed the whole entire window of applying trace elements. Because trace elements, are so needed for photosynthesis and the plant really, really needs to photosynthesize, especially very early on to create energy for the vine, especially when they're trying to actually create leaves on that vine.
[00:15:41] Trace elements are needed. Trace elements needed for enzymatic Actions and functions in the plant. And they're also basically there to help the macronutrients work better. All of those things need to happen very early on in the, in the plant. So yes, using SAP analysis to see how and if micronutrients are being taken up into the plant early on is vital in my opinion,
[00:16:10] Craig Macmillan: That makes sense. Your lab has an interesting way of reporting Nitrogen because it takes different forms and you will see that in Tissue reports, but you have a whole different way of kind of expressing and interpreting them That's the nitrogen conversion efficiency percentage the nice percentage. I believe that's what you call it Tell us more about that.
[00:16:32] I think I think it's an interesting concept
[00:16:34] Jenny Garley: I have been talking about this for years and was doing the math for individual clients and companies. And I thought, you know, we should just put this on our report. Most people start on their SAP analysis path with nitrogen. There's a lot of interest in that. On a SAP analysis report, the lower the measurable N in nitrate and N in ammonium.
[00:17:04] means that the plant taking up and converting the majority of nitrate and ammonium into amino acids and proteins. If there is high measurable nitrate or ammonium, the plant is having a conversion problem. And when the plant has a conversion problem, Before a grower goes and tries to add more nitrogen, they may want to figure out why their plants are unable to convert the nitrogen that the plants were already being given.
[00:17:37] It's very, very important when sap analysis samples are taken that they are put in a cooler because in tissue, there's heat and grinding, which makes ammonium and nitrate volatilize. Which is why sap samples need to be kept cool in order for our NICE number to be the best it can be, to give the very best data.
[00:18:06] When leaves get warm, you can no longer measure. Nitrate and ammonium. So, keeping those leaves cool and following those protocols, and I know I bring this up during nitrogen conversion, but you really do need to have cool leaves in order to have very, very good nitrate and ammonium numbers so that we can compare it to total N and give good, informative, nice percents.
[00:18:32] Craig Macmillan: If I'm seeing and if I'm understanding this correctly if I have high Ammonium high nitrate that means we were not converting nitrogen into the forms that the plant needs, in terms of proteins, amino acids, things like that. Are there recommendations or practices or things that I might think about doing to influence that?
[00:18:54] Jenny Garley: The first one, if the NICE number, the Nitrogen Conversion Efficiency percent, is low. So, low for grapes would be under 90. Grapes are actually fairly good at converting. If you were to look at corn or another crop, corn is actually very inefficient at converting. So, when we're talking about grapes, The nitrogen conversion efficiency percent really should be around 90 or above.
[00:19:20] If it's not, and you're falling into the 80s, even getting into the 70s, the first thing I would look at is your total N, and is it excessive? If it's excessive, stop right there. Stop sign. Because the plants can only convert so much nitrogen in a 24 hour period, and if the plants are being overfed, that is number one on the list to Stop doing that practice because it's, it's creating poor conversion.
[00:19:49] So that right there costs no more money for fertilizer. Just actually stop putting on nitrogen. And I would take another stop sample, get your report and see if. The new and the old leaves are actually, uh, very close together, very balanced. Because if you have a lot more nitrogen in that older leaf, that could be the problem for your nitrogen conversion right there.
[00:20:14] Step two would be looking at your macronutrients that are involved. That would be sulfur, that would be magnesium. One people forget a lot is phosphorus. Phosphorus creates ATP. If you're putting a lot of nitrate in, your plants actually need more energy to convert nitrate into amino acids and proteins.
[00:20:36] So that's another one to look at. The nitrogen conversion efficiency process actually means water. So looking at your water levels and are the vines getting enough water actually comes into play. One nutrient that people don't talk about a lot is calcium. Calcium is actually the master communicator nutrient, and so if calcium is quite low, the plant is having a hard time communicating for its needs, um, especially for nitrogen conversion.
[00:21:10] And then going into your trace elements. Zinc, manganese, moly, copper, iron, those are all nutrients that are needed for good nitrogen conversion.
[00:21:22] Craig Macmillan: So this would influence maybe my formulations, my choices. Sounds like my timing also might be influenced.
[00:21:30] Jenny Garley: Yeah. Nitrogen conversion is very influential on other nutrient application timings. If you're because of the way some people have very large vineyards and they're not able to spoon feed nitrogen as much as they would want. So understanding what type of nitrogen they're putting out and putting other fertilizer that could help convert is, is huge.
[00:21:55] Craig Macmillan: Which actually touches on another idea of talking about timing. I don't hear people talking about in season fertilization that much. Usually that's an end of season thing, and I think the philosophy is the plant's going to pull that up as it goes dormant, and it's in storage there in the trunk, ready to go for the spring, and then the plant will take it from there.
[00:22:16] Obviously there's a big nitrogen demand during the growing season, SAP analysis would help you identify whether that demand is being met, or whether it is too great, or whatever. So this would be a way of fine tuning your fertilization program, potentially with a little spoon feeding in the middle of the season.
[00:22:34] Does that make sense?
[00:22:36] Jenny Garley: Oh yeah, that makes sense. Again, taking that SAP analysis as early as possible to really see, are you going deficient early on? You really don't want to go deficient early on in the season, especially if The majority of your nitrogen applications are in the ball. And how can you help the conversion if you are getting enough nitrogen but the vines aren't converting it very well.
[00:23:02] So that really looks at dollars at that point. If you want to look at conversion, if you get down to the 70 percent mark, it means every dollar of nitrogen you're putting out, the plants are using 70 cents. So if you would like to make that 80 cents or 90 cents and actually try to pull back on your nitrogen, In order to do that, the plants have to become very, very efficient at the nitrogen they are being given.
[00:23:27] And then people are really starting to be able to cut back on their nitrogen when their efficiency gets very good. And that's when people start pulling back 10 to 15, even 20, 30 percent, when they consistently have nitrogen conversion efficiency in the 90 percent.
[00:23:46] Craig Macmillan: And it sounds like that's, um, influenced by some of these other micronutrients, um, like calcium, for instance, and phosphorus for the production of the ATP. Do you have some examples of clients that you've worked with that have adopted this technique and some of the changes they might have made?
[00:24:02] Jenny Garley: The majority of people that start with SAP want to look at their nitrogen efficiency. They are somewhere in the middle of trying to make a decision on cutting back. And so I highly suggest, if that's where you are or somebody in the industry is looking, to take as many samples as you can for the first season and graph it out.
[00:24:26] And you can see where the vines are taking up the most amount of nitrogen and where they actually start pushing it down to the older leaf. And right when they start pushing it down to the older leaf, that's a trigger for somebody that can make a management decision of, we add nitrogen and the plant is pushing it down to the, Older leaf, first of all, then vines aren't using it anymore.
[00:24:51] Secondly, that's throwing away money because the plant is not using it. It's storing it. If you are going to use that nitrogen when the leaves. fall and try to incorporate that into the soil, great. But if you're going to prune it off, that, those are the decisions that you can make from that, that type of scenario.
[00:25:15] Some folks are looking at, um, using this when they have high nitrates in their irrigation water, which is really problematic. And how to utilize the nitrogen that they already have during irrigation to convert it into amino acids and proteins so it doesn't affect fruit quality. That's another avenue that people have.
[00:25:38] They already have the nitrogen there, they just need to convert it, they just need to utilize it.
[00:25:42] Craig Macmillan: That's interesting. Yeah, I hadn't really thought about it that way, but that's true. What would be the one thing that you would tell a grape grower regarding this topic, in terms of the benefits of sap analysis or tissue analysis, or around managing your nitrogen and measuring what the conversion rate is?
[00:25:58] What's the one piece of advice or one takeaway you would give a grower?
[00:26:02] Jenny Garley: A lot of grape growers, wine grape growers, I talk to have a lot of vine stress. And if that's the case and you're using sap analysis to try to mitigate that, then you actually do need to look at your aluminum. And very few people do because when high amounts of aluminum are taking up, there is a stress.
[00:26:23] Trying to mitigate that and looking at sap analysis And trying to see when that stress occurs. So, when your aluminum starts to go over one part per million, the vine can be starting into a stress. And sap analysis can see that early. Anything lower than a part per million, I call that background aluminum, because aluminum is in every single soil.
[00:26:47] You're not going to get away from it. It's there naturally. So, When you're starting to see stress, then you need to look at other parameters such as E. C. electrical conductivity. A lot of people don't look at that either, but when elect electrical conductivity gets very high, the roots could actually be burning.
[00:27:06] And that's not really a nutrient source. situation that is a watering situation that is a high salt index fertilizer situation. Those are things that can be seen in a SAP analysis early on and decisions can be made to try to mitigate stress and keep our vines happy and healthy longer.
[00:27:28] Craig Macmillan: That is great advice. I just want to thank you for coming back. This is really great. And thanks for sharing your work, your insights. Our guest today has been Jenny Garley. She is Chief Science Officer at New Age Laboratories. Thanks for being on the podcast. This is really fun.
[00:27:44] Jenny Garley: It was fun. I enjoyed. Thank you. It is. It is.
[00:27:51] Craig Macmillan: That's what we're all about. Oh, and where can people find out more about you? And
[00:27:55] Jenny Garley: on LinkedIn quite a bit. Jenny Garley. Uh, I also have my first article that I wrote in the Progressive Crop Consultant magazine, the January, February issue. And that is the difference between leaf tissue and sap analysis. And then, of course, New Age Laboratories, our website.
[00:28:17] Beth Vukmanic: Thank you for listening. Today's podcast was brought to you by . Guillaume, grapevine nursery. Looking for top tier vines, Guillaume greapvine nursery pioneers in the nursery business since 1895 and serving Northern California since 2006 offers premium selections backed by generations of French expertise, providing the best genetic material for healthier growth and superior fruit to quality. Elevate your wine. With certified plants, you can trust.
[00:28:52] Make sure you check out the show notes for links to Jenny Her article this this year and her previous interview on the sustainable wine growing pods. Podcast 115 examining plant nutrient mobility. With SAP analysis. If you like this show, do us a big favor by. By sharing it with a friend. Subscribing and leaving us a review. You can find all of the podcasts at vineyardteam.org/podcast. And you can reach us at [email protected]. Until next time, this is sustainable Winegrowing but the vineyard team.
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[00:00:00] Beth Vukmanic: We. Often talk about sustainability in the vineyard, but that doesn't account for the whole picture. An important theme of sustainable wine production is the ability. To elevate the practices as a whole, from block to bottle.
[00:00:12] Welcome to marketing tip Monday with sip certified. We know. That customers are looking for wines labeled as sustainable. While our longer. , form episodes help you learn about the latest science and research for the wine industry. These twice monthly micro podcasts. We'll help you share your dedication. to sustainable wine growing.
[00:00:30] After months of careful cultivation in the vineyard. The grapes still have a lengthy journey ahead. It's no secret that the. The journey takes place in the winery, but what exactly does it take for
[00:00:40] in this week's marketing tip. She shares four ways. Ways. That you. Can approve the sustainability at your winery.
[00:00:47] Number one is to sanitize smarter. Safe cleaning and sanitation practices are essential in wine-making, . But the financial. And environmental impact of sanitation products can add up and lead. A sustainably minded business to look for better solutions.
[00:01:03] Cambria periodically runs trials and explores. Floors alternative products to see if they can sanitize in a more eco. Eco-friendly way.
[00:01:10] When testing paracidic. , acid. Abbreviated PAA an organic. Peroxide based sanitation, liquid, commonly used in food and beverage industries and health care facilities. Cambria's, his team had two questions. One, could they lower their solutions, concentration and maintain effectiveness. And two could they reuse a batch of the PAA solution more than once.
[00:01:34] To answer the first question, they mixed up a range. Of PAA concentrations and got to sanitizing. When. They used ATP swabs to test the bacteria and yeast on. They're sanitized areas. They found that they could use less of the product. Product to get the same results.
[00:01:50] The answer to their second question was also a yes, they found. And that they could use. Certain PAA concentrations up to three. Times with a hundred percent effectiveness. Samantha says. Says, researching and trying different products can lead to a cost. Cost benefit and possible switch to a more effective, less impactful. Product.
[00:02:10] G Help them reduce. Both product and water while still maintaining a safe sanitation. Practice.
[00:02:17] Tip number two is to recycle your lab. Plus. Plastics plastic is one of the hardest materials to dispose of. In an environmentally responsible way. Wineries know this well, because. Because commonly used lab plastics, can't be recycled in the normal stream.
[00:02:32] Cambria works with Polycarbin, a platform. For recycling and . remanufacturing lab plastics Polycarbin takes used. Scientific plastics and re manufacturers them into more tubes. Pipette boxes and pipette tips. Their system creates. A closed loop, supply chain. That ensures that Cambria's has plastics don't end up in the landfill.
[00:02:56] To make the deal even sweeter, Polycarbin tracking software. sends Cambria, a monthly report on the impact of the recycling practices.
[00:03:05] In March of 2024. They recycled 24 kilograms of plastic reduced 144 kilograms of CO2 emissions and preserved 220 cubic meters of water. And that's only for one month.
[00:03:18] But Cambria doesn't stop at recycling. Their lab supplies. They also work with TerraCycle, a recycling company that collects. And recycles materials that are not generally accepted in the traditional recycle. Recycling system.
[00:03:32] For example. Example TerraCycle sends Cambria boxes for disposable coveralls. safety glasses and ear protection so that they can be sorted. Cleaned and sent it to third party partners to be produced into. Into usable forms.
[00:03:46] Tip. Number three conduct, yearly audits.
[00:03:50] While, responsible waste management is the goal. For any sustainably minded business, Samantha notes, you don't know how to improve if you don't know where you're starting from. Annual waste. Audits help. Cambria . Analyze their waste. And how it's being disposed. Samantha tells us they collect. They're trash and recycling separated out and see if things are being disposed. Of correctly and assess if staff training is needed. Keeping stock. Of the type and quantity of waste and where it's going is key to. Making decisions that have less impact on the environment. In fact. This is exactly how they transitioned to recycling their lab plastics.
[00:04:27] Samantha tells us . While they're lightweight. There's a lot of it. We looked into how we could improve this and ended up finding. The plastics, recycling options.
[00:04:37] And tip number four is to get involved. Jackson family wines. Cambria's has parent company take sustainability. To the next level with their program rooted for good a roadmap. Map to 2030. It's a 10-year sustainability and climate. Action plan that outlines the goals and initiatives designed to. Lead climate solutions. Create a positive social impact. And support the Jackson family's long-term vision for a sustainable. , future.
[00:05:03] Part of. Their plan centers around social responsibility and their employees. Play a significant role through volunteerism. Every employee gets. To paid. Facility. Volunteer days per year. To head out and do good as a group. Plus one to two paid personal. , volunteer days to find other opportunities that align with their values.
[00:05:24] They help their communities by volunteering for local events. Cleaning up trash at beaches and historical sites and much more.
[00:05:31] Their staff have volunteered over 6,000. hours. That's the equivalent of one person working nearly three. Years of 40 hour work weeks.
[00:05:40] With the business behind the team and supporting their. Community. It's no surprise that everyone really enjoys. . Community service days.
[00:05:46] Let us know how you have made your winery more sustainable.
[00:05:50] Listen up sip certified members offer your club members. . The chance to experience yours and other SIP certified brands in February. 2025. ReSIProcal February is an annual month. , long event that offers tasting rooms, the opportunity to increase their traffic. And connect with like-minded wine enthusiasts who value sustainability. . We're enrolling participants now just go to sipcertified.org/join-resip-2025 to. Get signed up. You can also find that link in the show notes.
[00:06:23] Until next time. Time. This is sustainable wine growing with the vineyard team.
Nearly perfect transcript by Descript.
Resources: *** Tell Your Sustainable Story Online Course *** Apply for SIP Certified Wine Join ReSIProcal February 2025 Marketing Tips eNewsletter Sustainable Story | Print Sustainable Story | Electronic What's your Sustainable Story? Vineyard Team Programs: Juan Nevarez Memorial Scholarship - Donate SIP Certified – Show your care for the people and planet Sustainable Ag Expo – The premiere winegrowing event of the year Sustainable Winegrowing On-Demand (Western SARE) – Learn at your own pace Vineyard Team – Become a Member -
NASA has connected data about the Earth’s surface since 1972. One of the first applications was for agriculture. Alyssa Whitcraft, Executive Director of NASA Acres grew up in the wine industry at her family’s property, Whitcraft Winery, located in Santa Barbara California.
Her goal is to make it easier for people and organizations to use satellite data to improve agriculture. Alyssa explains how different types of satellites including polar-orbiting and geostationary collect information that can be calibrated against crop-specific data to develop predictive models. Farmers can use these models to identify viral, fungal, bacterial, water, and nutrient stressors and forecast harvest.
While this technology is being used in commodity crops today, there is a huge opportunity for specialty crops.
Resources: 129: The Efficient Vineyard Project 199: NASA Satellites Detect Grapevine Diseases from Space 233: The Gap Between Space and Farm: Ground Truthing Satellite Data Models Alyssa Whitcraft Group on Earth Observations Global Agricultural Monitoring Initiative (GEOGLAM) NASA Acres NASA Harvest Whitcraft Winery Vineyard Team Programs: Juan Nevarez Memorial Scholarship - Donate SIP Certified – Show your care for the people and planet Sustainable Ag Expo – The premiere winegrowing event of the year Sustainable Winegrowing On-Demand (Western SARE) – Learn at your own pace Vineyard Team – Become a Member Get MoreSubscribe wherever you listen so you never miss an episode on the latest science and research with the Sustainable Winegrowing Podcast. Since 1994, Vineyard Team has been your resource for workshops and field demonstrations, research, and events dedicated to the stewardship of our natural resources.
Learn more at www.vineyardteam.org.
Transcript[00:00:00]
[00:00:04] Beth Vukmanic: NASA has collected data about the earth surface since 1972, One of the first applications was for agriculture. Welcome to sustainable wine growing with the vineyard team, where we bring you the latest in science and research for the wine industry. I'm Beth. Vukmanic executive director. Since 1994 vineyard team has brought you the latest science-based practices, experts, growers, and wine industry tools through both in-field and online education, so that you can grow your business. Please raise a glass with us as we cheers to 30 years.
[00:00:39] And today's podcast Craig Macmillan, critical resource manager at Niner wine estates with long time sip certified vineyard and the first ever sip certified winery. Speaks with Alyssa Woodcraft, executive director of NASA acres. She grew up in the wine industry at her family's property. Whitcraft winery located in Santa Barbara, California.
[00:01:01] Alyssa's goal is to make it easier for people and organizations to use satellite data, to improve ag. Alissa explains how different types of satellites, including polar orbiting and geostationary collect information that can be calibrated against crop specific data to develop predictive models. Farmers can then use these models to identify viral, fungal bacteria, water, and nutrients stressors. And forecast harvest. While, this technology is being used in commodity crops today. There was huge opportunity for specialty crops.
[00:01:35] Alyssa is involved in numerous organizations and projects. So I highly recommend that you visit our show notes. And check out her website.
[00:01:43] If you want access to more viticulture research and technology from the world's top experts, then you won't want to miss the premier Winegrowing event of the year. The sustainable ag expo enjoy the perfect blend of in-person and online learning. Speak directly with national experts. Earn over 20 hours of continuing education and explore sustainable ag vendors. It all takes place November 11th through 13th, 2024 in San Luis Obispo, California. As a listener to this podcast. Make sure you use discount code podcast 24 at checkout to take $50 off of your ticket. Register
[00:02:19] today at sustainableagexpo.org. Now let's listen
[00:02:27] Craig Macmillan: Welcome to Sustainable Wine Growing with Vineyard Team. Our guest today is Alyssa Whitcraft. She is Executive Director of NASA Acres, and we're going to talk about all kinds of exciting stuff that she's involved with, and I'll let her explain those. Thanks for being on the podcast, Alyssa.
[00:02:43] Alyssa Whitcraft: Thank you for inviting me.
[00:02:45] Craig Macmillan: You're involved in a whole bunch of different projects and consortiums and programs mostly around remote sensing and agriculture.
[00:02:53] And you're excited about a number of different things in your field. What exactly is your field? I think it's a good place to start because I think a lot of people don't understand what it is.
[00:03:01] Alyssa Whitcraft: I'm a geographer, which is basically the world's oldest discipline. We use the lens of space and place and location to understand the world. And knowing that things that are near to one another tend to have more in common than things that are far from one another. And similarly, we know that where you are in the world matters for all sorts of different things. And that's really the lens through which I see and understand the world. Specifically within geography, because geography is a very broad discipline, my expertise is in using satellite data and other Earth observations to understand what's happening across the world in principally agriculture. I've done work in the past in forestry as well.
[00:03:47] Craig Macmillan: What kinds of things does this field have coming in the future? What are the things that you're most excited about in terms of all the different work that you're doing?
[00:03:55] Alyssa Whitcraft: Would it be helpful if I gave a little bit of history, or is that too much info?
[00:03:59] Craig Macmillan: . Please, please.
[00:04:01] Alyssa Whitcraft: Sure. So a lot of people don't realize that satellite data has been collected of the Earth's surface since 1972. NASA launched its first satellite back then, and one of its first applications was agriculture. It was really for looking at global forecasting, production forecasting, and things like that in areas where We couldn't gather statistics like the USSR, for example. And so that was very early.
[00:04:29] They thought, hey, we really need to understand what's happening with the global food production, global food supply. What kind of prices are we going to be able to get? Those were the very earliest experiments. And a lot of years have passed since then. It's 52 years now. That particular satellite was called Landsat. Well, it's called ERTS 1. It's been, renamed Landsat 1 in hindsight and they've just launched Landsat 9 two years ago. So we've really, we have a lot of series of it now with continuity of data for 52 years from that satellite, that mission alone. there's a huge plethora of other types of data though that are also collected. Landsat, for example, its characteristics are, it passes over the same place every 16 days at about 30 meter resolution. So 100 feet by 100 feet, about a football field, and then there's other satellites that pass over every day and they might have much coarser spatial resolution. So 250 meters by 250 meters, for example. And then there's also recently, because storage is cheap and the Internet is fast, there's a proliferation of these very fine spatial resolution satellites where you can tell almost down to the plant level.
[00:05:38] Definitely tree level, what you're looking at, that's quite fine in resolution and still have some degree of rich spectral information. And what I mean when I say that is basically everything around us is reflecting light all the time or emitting light. And we only see a little tiny piece of it, the visible spectrum.
[00:06:00] That's why it's called the visible. But there's so much richness, on both sides of the visible spectrum. So longer wavelengths and shorter wavelengths, and they tell us all kinds of things about what's going on with a surface. we see vegetation as green because that's what it's reflecting. But there's other things in near infrared that can tell us about vegetation health. Or sort of mid range infrared that can tell us about water stress, things like this. And so now we have more and more spectral information, more and more frequently and finer and finer spatial resolution.
[00:06:35] So our ability to see a great deal of detail has come a really long way. And still just like kind of any instrument you use, your ability to do something useful with it is contingent upon its quality and also the quality of the kind of science that you use to interpret the data and turn it into information.
[00:06:58] Craig Macmillan: What kinds of information is this data being turned into? And on what kinds of or agrosystems?
[00:07:06] Alyssa Whitcraft: All over the world. There's two broad classes of satellites. One is called polar orbiting. So it's going around the poles and it returns to look at the same spot every, you know, it's governed by its orbit and a couple of other things. I said Landsat was 16 days, for example and others can be much more frequently or even longer. So that's one kind, polar orbiting. The other type is geostationary, which means that as the earth turns, it's always looking at the same spot. And that's what most of the sort of weather satellites are. So that's why you can get really like frequently every 15 minutes, like a radar image, for example. all that's to say, like a lot of the satellites we use are polar orbiting, and that means it's not biased toward only collecting data over the United States.
[00:07:48] It's collecting data all over the world. In the past, because. storage was expensive. There wasn't very much storage capacity on the spacecrafts. You couldn't store it all. They used to have to select which images they were going to capture. So it might be passing over a surface, but it wouldn't turn the camera on. And only about, I want to say 2012, 2013 was when Landsat started acquiring almost every single opportunity. And not just capturing something like A third of the daylit scenes that could capture every day. so all that's to say, we now have like so much rich coverage the last 12 or so years with that kind of satellite. So that means like we're getting observations of the earth's surface where everywhere agriculture is grown at least every day, depending on the type of satellite you're talking about. And even for the finer resolution ones, you're getting it every day. 10 days, maybe once you are to 20 days once you account for cloud cover in a lot of areas.
[00:08:44] Craig Macmillan: what kinds of decisions can people make regarding how they farm based on this kind of information? And my understanding is that this is public information, is that correct?
[00:08:53] Alyssa Whitcraft: What I talked about was sort of where you can collect information. It's all over. It's not you know, biased toward any particular region per se. By virtue of that, it's not necessarily biased toward any one crop because it's collecting all those data. So those observations exist, but our ability to turn them into information is contingent upon how much we've studied that, that item. And, and how much what it, the light that it reflects in the satellite picks up on is related to whatever it is that we're trying to study. So that's to say if a satellite only collects visible information, then we're not going to be able to talk about sort of some of the items associated with chlorophyll content and like health of the plant. Or if it doesn't collect the long infrared or mid infrared you're going to miss out on information about water, things like that.
[00:09:41] And that's just kind of a simplified answer to that piece. And so we're able to collect all kinds of variables. In my work, we've called them essential agriculture variables. they're basically core building blocks, variables that we can measure and infer about the earth based on satellite data about the state, what the change has been over time and what the forecast is to the future.
[00:10:02] We can look at, Hey, what kind of crop is being cultivated here right now? We can see how has that changed over the last 10 years? We can look at, okay, this is the current condition. What's the forecast for harvest this year? different things like that. We can also do within season detection of certain stressors, biotic and abiotic stress.
[00:10:22] So you know, can be viral, fungal, bacterial diseases water stress that can help with precision kind of irrigation scheduling. We can also look at you know, when you couple that with like short term weather forecasts, you can see, okay, there's going to be really high demand evaporative demand. And so we need to think about maybe irrigating or doing something in advance to prep the vegetation for that. You can also use it for nutrient applications. So, this is primarily in row crops so not really vineyards per se. But, we can take a look at what the current nutrient status is. Nitrogen, if it's nitrogen deficient, then you are only applying what it needs and not too much. Same goes with pesticides. You're not just doing blanket spraying. You can do early detection and mitigation. With nitrogen, you only apply how much is needed and where it's needed, which has important environmental benefits. It also helps the farmers sort of bottom line, not wasting money. And also in terms of a fertile excess fertilizer being applied and also not leaving money on the farm by not applying enough. It can be really helpful in kind of zeroing in on what intervention needs to be done and what you can prepare for at the end of the season.
[00:11:32] Craig Macmillan: I'm just thinking through this, so you would have to have some crop specific, and maybe even region specific on the ground work in order to make the connection, the correlation between, I'm getting this reading, and then this is what's going on with the plants.
[00:11:47] Alyssa Whitcraft: Yes. Yep. That's completely accurate. And I'm really glad you said it because there is a perspective on satellite data that it's magic, that you just take the image and you have the information. And that's just like not really how it works. Now we're getting more and more sophisticated models out there, but all models have to be trained on something. And just because I've trained it on a ton of corn in Iowa doesn't mean it's going to work on corn in Argentina. Like that's just not necessarily how these things work. some people call it ground truth. I prefer to call it training data, validation data. you know, in situ site data, things like that, comparison data. And the reason for that nuance is just to say that there is error in all measurement. So just because if your scale is calibrated wrong and you say, this is, this was my harvest, this was my yield, then that's not necessarily ground truthed see what I mean? So, and I think that that's an important point to make because we're trying to add an additional piece of measurement to the picture, right?
[00:12:48] It can give you more frequent. more coverage deeper spectral information. It can a lot, but it's a piece, it's a component of a multi source decision support system. We say like garbage in garbage out on the remote sensing side of things. Our observations are very good, but you know, we're talking about hundreds of millions of dollars of engineering in the sensors and the satellites to go up into space. So those are incredibly high quality and the space agencies who fly them they do a lot of expensive CalVal, it's called, so they go and they make sure that the instruments like, you know, The analogy in your kitchen would be you stick your thermometer in boiling water to make sure 212 Fahrenheit or 100 degrees Celsius is exactly what your thermometer is picking up, right? So we do the same thing with satellites. that's great for the reflectance or for the wavelengths, but that's not information. So then what we go out, we might take some tissue samples. To understand what's happening with nutrients with pest and disease stuff, some soil samples for that purpose. Or for some of the more like workhorse, what we've been doing with satellite data for a lot longer, those are more novel applications. The lot much longer is what's growing where where it is. What's the season. Like why is it. Kind of just at the early part, is it flowering, reproductive, is it toward harvest and then also yield.
[00:14:09] And so we go out, we take crop cuts, we do things like that, then we calibrate our observations or our models against those data, and then we can run a predictive model that can tell us for the same site in another year, or more commonly you take it from that site and then generalize it. to where you have satellite data that are continuous, like so you have a whole an image, but you don't have any training data from this vineyard over here. So you take the training data from this vineyard and see if you can use it to identify what's happening in other vineyards. And then you assess, how well did I do off of another set of data that's from the ground.
[00:14:46] Craig Macmillan: And so I would imagine that that kind of work is done extensively in agronomic crops, or what we might call staple crops, you know, rice, maize, soy, things like that, wheat. But you can do this with specialty crops as well. You mentioned vineyards. If there is interest and if there is funding, we can do this kind of work and bring vineyards into this this, this kind of process, this kind of science.
[00:15:11] Alyssa Whitcraft: Yeah. I mean, you're spot on. Like I said earlier, the earliest applications of satellite data. Were in kind of global production forecasting with the reason being that wheat prices, for example, are incredibly correlated with conflict. So as wheat prices go up, you see more human conflict. And so these are the huge drivers of global trends in prices, in food security, all these kinds of things that are really important to track. And so the, you know, the early app applications were really for that type of crop and for very large scale forecasting in the sort of 80s, 90s was when you started to see some of the precision management. So on farm information but perhaps not as much as people hoped for in in this kind of satellite world, there was a lot of unsuccessful startups and, and things like that. I think the big reason for that is like, if you're going out and scouting your 10 acre vineyard, like you can generally walk it. It's not a big deal. You're not driving a combine through. My family's in the wine business and I grew up walking vineyards with my dad and taking tissue samples and taking fruit samples and doing things like, it was just a part of the day, you know, if you're farming 10, 000 acres, that's not viable.
[00:16:30] And so you're, you have, million dollar combine to these days and things like that. That's something with autonomous driving, you can program a great deal of information into it. sort of like historically, there just wasn't necessarily the, like. The demand for what satellite data could offer, you know, it was focused on kind of like yield and nutrients and water.
[00:16:49] There just wasn't the same use case in, in specialty crops. In a lot of ways, especially since some of them are growing greenhouses. So like, we're kind of out of luck with that. And so, yeah, whoops, but that things have just changed. We have better satellites now that collect more information more spectral information, higher spatial resolution, more frequently, we can process so much more data now, which means.
[00:17:14] we can kind of just keep throwing more and more data at a model until it picks up some signal that we never could have anticipated. That's kind of the basis of machine learning or artificial intelligence is that you just keep going like feeding it until you see if something comes out. That also has its own problems.
[00:17:31] Pretty funny fails AI. I think we've seen before the models get overtrained and it's very. clear that they don't work once they're over trained. They, they spit out like a baby with three hands AI image. And you're like, that's not, that's not right. Or I saw a matzah ball on a plate. It was like, rather than like a soup dumpling, it was like a tennis ball that was like matzah colored. I was like, that's not right either. You know, it's funny things like that. So the same thing can happen when we're looking at, you know, the earth's surface as well.
[00:18:00] Craig Macmillan: you are executive director of NASA Acres. That name has come up in a couple of other interviews. Could you explain, , what NASA Acres is and what you folks do?
[00:18:09] Alyssa Whitcraft: Yeah, sure thing.
[00:18:10] So NASA Acres is NASA's U. S. focused Applied Sciences
[00:18:15] So why, that's kind of a long title, NASA is principally a research agency. Now, it's not it's not USDA where it does farm services or loans or reports on statistics and agriculture. It's famous for people putting a man on the moon and missions to Mars, but NASA has this whole huge earth science division. within that, there's you know, the, the component that's dedicated to launching the satellites and making the data really high quality. And then there's an accessible data, high quality and data accessible. And then there's sort of like the core foundational research, which is. We've never used satellite data to measure this thing before, or we have used satellite data, but now we're just going to apply it elsewhere and do a study that results in a paper.
[00:18:56] So we learn a thing. That's research and analysis in NASA, and then there's applied sciences and earth action, which is, it's kind of new manifestation in NASA, which is like trying to take this data and really make an impact, really get the information, the data, the tools in the hands of people who are addressing, in our case, agricultural challenges.
[00:19:19] So that's farmers, that's ranchers. That's people in the ag value chain that's ag retailers, all the, I mean, there's a whole bunch of people in here who can benefit in some way from this data. And our job is to work with them to advance the science as much as possible because NASA's brand is really like quality, right?
[00:19:39] And then, but also neutrality. And so we kind of just try and lift. the floor, so to speak, make the quality as good as possible, advance the science, and then hope that the private sector that's out there that's serving people in agriculture can sustain the services or, and, and really be adding value to people in agriculture long, long after our projects end.
[00:20:00] Craig Macmillan: And so that, that's going to be where the next link is, is the private sector picking up this information, this data, and then figuring out how they can use it for their client base, maybe for a specific crop or a specific region, and then we can we'll see some development there. we've seen with like material science, I think is a classic example of that, you know the space program resulted in a lot of advances in materials that now we don't even think about. They're part of our everyday life,
[00:20:27] Alyssa Whitcraft: Yeah, like the blankets run a
[00:20:30] NASA, more than just Tang, you know, when I'm trying to like get across to people that, the planet we study most is Earth to quote Karen St. Germain, who's the Earth Science Division Director for NASA. I mean, material science is a really good example, but we have it so much in all these things that like, be them weather and climate services That's, you know, Noah's job principally to create the kind of forecasting models that are pushed out when we're talking about the United States.
[00:21:02] There's people all over the world doing it and then like weather channel or weather underground or whatever, build services on top of that. And then that's like what faces the consumer. So it's all kind of a part of an important chain. And in fact, NASA is in the background collaborating with Noah on this information as well. for us in the agriculture side of things NASA harvest, which still continues today as NASA's global agriculture applied sciences program. But from 2017, when it started until 2022, it was the whole kit and caboodle. So both us global international, the whole thing. And then they split the programs.
[00:21:39] So into Acres and Harvest. I was the deputy director and program manager for NASA Harvest from when it started until I took over the helm and founded NASA Acres in 2023. NASA Harvest, there's a great example of commercialization or of, of really strong collaboration with the private sector. Which is when the Ukraine war began there was obviously a huge hole in information all of a sudden about what on earth was going to happen with the food that comes out of Ukraine, which between Russia and Ukraine, it's 30 percent of the world's wheat, wheat's very correlated with conflict to begin with. And there's certain partners who are a hundred percent reliant upon imports from Ukraine and or Russia of wheat. , you don't just go drive down the street to the next grocery store and pick up your wheat. Like this is billions, trillions of dollars of movement that can't pivot overnight. So the potential implications were massive. And the more information you have earlier to plan for that, the better. And that's where satellite data came to bear. You couldn't send field agents out when there's an active war happening to be like, what was planted? Is it growing? Are farmers? Applying nutrients.
[00:22:50] Is it going to be harvested? Things like that. NASA Harvest partnered with a number of organizations, but one was a private space company called Planet who collects sub meter and three meter data. daily with they have many, many small satellites and so they're, these are not the three, 400 million satellites that NASA flies.
[00:23:08] These are much less expensive and they can fly way more of them. They're much smaller. They're a very different satellite. But they're great for getting high spatial resolution often. And when you can't go out and collect ground data. to do training on your images. Was this planted? Was this not planted?
[00:23:25] This appears to be this crop. This appears to be this crop. Satellite data of that kind are very helpful. And so then we would use that to train some of the other satellites that have perhaps richer spectral information or other qualities that we might look for in a certain analysis.
[00:23:40] And because we had this partnership with Planet, they were going out and collecting the data. We were able to do this analysis. talk about, you know, what we expected to see in terms of wheat harvest that year and sunflower and corn and rapeseed and all these really critical crops that Ukraine exports and help us prepare and mitigate any potential food security crisis and then Planet.
[00:24:03] On the flip side, they've suddenly made a huge impact with their data. And they've additionally been able to, you know, we do a lot of work on the. nitty gritty of the engineering of radiometric calibration and things like that. We also can support them in improving their imagery. And then now they have a use case in agriculture and all these different kind of things by partnering with us. But we've also advanced the models and the science and the knowledge that's all a public benefit. And so that's like a really lovely investment from the federal government that kind of has this big societal benefit, but then also supports the private sector and continued innovation and services.
[00:24:37] Craig Macmillan: in this case, it allows for the prediction of what may be available right?
[00:24:43] Alyssa Whitcraft: Yeah. In that example, for sure. The war broke out in February and the winter wheat harvest would have been, gosh, like may to June. You're looking to see how was the, was this coming back after winter? We're, what was the condition of the crop at a baseline? Were people able to apply nutrients of any kind? And once harvest time came. Were people able to go down in the field to harvest or did they not do it because they had been killed or evacuated or because there's unexploded ordinances in their field and things like this.
[00:25:13] And so that was really the beginning of the analysis and then it, it continued for other crops into the future. And it's a really rich ongoing project about which you can find copious resources online.
[00:25:26] Craig Macmillan: how are we doing on, on those areas? Are there people that are stepping up in the private sector to work on that.
[00:25:31] Alyssa Whitcraft: Definitely. Yeah, there are. The public sector, you know, my side of the house is too. but it's interesting. it's an interesting point because we focus so much on agronomic crops. We've done that because there's a really clear reason to invest public dollars. I think the very early stage collaboration with the private sector for specialty crops is much more critical than it was for these kind of big agronomic crops. So that means from the odd outset. the projects need to have very engaged partners from the private sector. It might be in the form of just working directly with the vineyard so that they can kind of maybe collect some of the ground data or if we're developing a tool, they can kind of like test it and provide feedback, things like that.
[00:26:14] But then there's going to be other circumstances where we might be trying to use a compendium of information. So you might be using some soil sensing to look at water status. But it's like, you can't place a million of them in your field. So, you know, you might take the benefit, the accuracy, the depth that you get from those expensive and ground instruments, and then try to pair them with the satellites and then build like kind of a hybrid measurement system.
[00:26:41] You get the benefit of the update frequency the satellites and the spatial coverage, of course. And then you get like the really good quality. measurements within the field. we've seen a lot of burgeoning partnerships in specialty crops and of course also agronomic commodity crops as well, but where we're trying to look at a hybrid network of in ground sensors or canopy sensors or drones. side canopy robots that my colleague Katie Gold, who was on your, podcast before, she uses these robots, Katie Gold and Yu Jiang, her collaborator at Cornell to, to sort of build toward the long term adoption of, of these, actually not even long term, to build toward the short and medium term adoption of these things, because that's real, it's really going to sustain them, NASA projects. typically three years acres and harvests are each in five year kind of increments harvest was renewed and For its global work and spit off its domestic work. And so hopefully we will be renewed as well But it's not the design of federal research to like provide every service forever We need to work with the people who need the information Because they're gonna tell us what to do and what like what matters to them You and then we need to work with the people who can kind of own the services long term and maintain those high touch relationships with their customers, growers, ag retailers, whomever it might be.
[00:28:04] Craig Macmillan: Spain, places like that Australia?
[00:28:06] Alyssa Whitcraft: You this is an area I'm definitely less comfortable talking about. within NASA Acres, we really only have Katie and you's project that's in specialty crops. And that's principally just by virtue of all the things I described. It's really only been the last four or five years that this stuff has started blossoming. And even within Katie's project. She's not using satellite data really, right now, she's done some demonstration stuff. We're preparing for a NASA instrument to launch in 2028. And we're doing years of preparatory work. NASA has an airborne fleet. People don't know that. And it's collecting very similar data to what will on this satellite SBG. Also, there's a sensor mounted on. The International Space Station called EMIT that also collects similar information. So we're already using that, but we're kind of like priming the pump for primetime, right? So Katie is very, Katie is like a very kind of ahead of the curve kind of situation person. The spectroscopy of the laboratory stuff, we all, we all know that it's been around for a long time, but the imaging capability to do it outside is novel. And so she and Yu are kind of working together on that. I don't have another project in my portfolio that does that right now. We are looking at using those data similarly, the hyperspectral is what it's called, data. We're starting to try and build use cases in rangeland monitoring as well for rotational grazing.
[00:29:33] So looking at forage quality, it's not just a matter of whether the biomass comes back, it's whether it's the right biomass, so the right mixture of different crops. If you've overgrazed an area, you'll just get like the one dominant. type of grass will come back, and that's not very nutrient dense, and it's not very sustainable, it's not very regenerative. If you don't overgraze an area, then things will grow back in a more balanced way, and that's something that we're trying to explore, how well satellites can pick up that heterogeneity in the landscape. That's an example there. I'm aware of some work in sort of olive groves in Spain, in Italy And I know there are some companies who have attempted to do kind of proxy measurements of shade coffee and cocoa. Very high value crops, but you can't see them because they're under the canopy of another tree. And there's been a lot of different experimental ways of trying to get at that. But in terms of my understanding of how successful those different cases have been. It's a little outside my wheelhouse. It's pretty novel. and yeah, I mean, I, the, the thing about being an applied sciences program, we're not the foundational research RNA. So what that means is like, we've got to kind of see the science demonstrated fairly firmly for it to move into a major part of the portfolio.
[00:30:53] That said, like there are some projects in my portfolio that are higher risk or that like, you know, that delivery might be a few years off because of the lack of instrumentation. And there are some stuff that's more experimental, but where those are the case like that Rangeland project or Katie's project That's because we have super engaged users already. So there's ranchers who are at the table for another purpose. Katie is, you know, an extension agent for Cornell working with grape and apple growers, and they want to know how to manage this.
[00:31:23] So she already has engaged parties. So having the satellite stuff be like maybe a little bit more nascent and its development cycle is okay versus, you know, where we don't necessarily have the strongest user. identified and partnered already, we're kind of relying on the more mature applications and starting to kind of transition that stuff out more quickly to broader audiences.
[00:31:45] Craig Macmillan: How can the wine grape industry or other crops, support this and encourage research in their particular area?
[00:31:54] Alyssa Whitcraft: There's legwork on both sides meaning that we need to be with the communities we live and work in. Thank you. to get those people involved in what we have to offer. So it's like there's a trust building component, there's an awareness building component and then there's also just the participate if somebody contacts you about being in a study or, you know, by word of mouth, Oh, this vineyard down the road is doing it.
[00:32:17] Like, maybe we'll do it here. I trust that person's discretion, so I'll do it here. Collaborating and being active in that research from the NASA acres perspective is, is really important. And more than just really from the NASA acres perspective, from really the kind of, you know, we're neutral, we're trying to build quality, we're trying to raise the floor.
[00:32:36] So even if you come, you know, you come through us, we hopefully make things better, which feeds back benefits to you in your, in your operation, but also to your kind of broader industry. So there are some vineyards, for example that I have personal relationships with from my whole life. And when Katie and I started collaborating and, you know, just generally sharing passions for a number of things, including wine and remote sensing, She asked if I had any, you know, friends who would let her take tissue samples who thought they might have particular diseases or were just curious to collaborate so that she could kind of do this proof of concept of these technologies and do these studies. And I was like, yeah, probably. So I just shot a couple of friends text messages and they were all like, sure. And the thing is, is like, they know me, right? And so they know that I'm not going to Never do anything intentional to bring harm. And I certainly would also go work very hard to make sure that even something I hadn't foreseen was protected. And I think that that's actually so critical, probably in every industry, but I'm most comfortable in agriculture. Like these are strong communities of trust that are built up. You know, you knew my dad and when I was 15 he had a major surgery in kind of mid, late August which coincides nicely with harvest, the beginning of harvest.
[00:33:57] Craig Macmillan: Yeah, the wine grape harvest in california.
[00:33:59] Alyssa Whitcraft: exactly. My dad was a winemaker in in Santa Barbara County, and that's where I grew up And I grew up in the winery so yeah when I was 15 He got he got really sick And he had to have a surgery and he was in the ICU for like a week and after that like it takes a while to recover so people that he had mentored, people who he had been close with for, you know, 20 odd years, 25 years in, in the region just kind of stepped up and processed his fruit, you know?
[00:34:28] So one, you miss one harvest, you're donezo, you know? Like that's just not how things work in the wine business. And my brother, who's now the winemaker, was only 19 at the time. So like, technically he wasn't even old enough to drink wine legally, but like, you know, he was there kind of. Running the ship with, you know, the huge support of these family friends who made it happen. So all that's to say, like those trust networks are everything in, in agriculture and everything in sort of agri food and like I said, probably other industries too, but I just don't know them. That's certainly the case in agriculture. And we're not going to make any like progress unless we build those trust relationships.
[00:35:08] And then since we can't meet everybody face to face, we need you know, those people to then be the hinge points to bring their, their kind of collaborators, colleagues, friends business partners, whatever, to the table to tell us what they need, to tell us what they want, give us feedback on what we've done and then work with us if they see value.
[00:35:27] Craig Macmillan: Yeah, I'm thinking of there are a number of organizations in the United States, in the wine industry, that fund or promote research on particular topics, and I can see there might be an opening there. you know, talking about trust, folks that have gotten awards, farmers that have been collaborators on these projects. I think it's a good place to start. For these new technologies. I think it's an interesting idea. I hadn't really thought about it that way. And I'm definitely going to take, take that away with me when I go to some of, these meetings. , and some of these, , some of these, , review, , committee
[00:35:57] Alyssa Whitcraft: Related to that, so one of the things we're just beginning to kind of explore the logistics of how we would implement it is identifying sort of farmer champions or kind of innovation partners. I don't know exactly what we want to call them, but they're people who are like amenable a collaboration
[00:36:17] , everybody only has so much time. So it takes time to do these things together. So if you have like a real passion or a real interest, it's something you might more willing to do. It helps us do it. the most good the most quickly. , so we're kind of looking at creating this kind of collaborator farmer innovation partner kind of thing where we work, you know, on their farms, they kind of give detailed feedback.
[00:36:38] They serve as different kind of hinge points, , to meet people in their community and really be champions we're doing, but also like not just be our hype guys and hype girls out there, but just be like, Hey, what you're doing makes no sense. Or like your aunt, you know, that's great that you created this capability.
[00:36:55] That gives me a forecast every week. I need it every day. Not useful to me. Things like that. So the frank feedback, , early adopters, but high touch early adopters, people who really are passionate about benefiting their industry and communities.
[00:37:10] Craig Macmillan: the state of the, world right now you've mentioned nations, lots of different crops, lots of, different technologies in your work and also kind of in the future, what's happening now to move all of this forward and where do you see it going?
[00:37:23] Alyssa Whitcraft: not to you know, date myself, somehow I'm one of like, the more se, I don't know senior is the right word, but like I'm no longer the young in this world. And so I've been around long enough that I started remote sensing in remote sensing of agriculture before.
[00:37:39] was really on an upward trajectory. Things have changed the last 15 or 16 years. But when things were really was the food price spikes in 2008 and 2011 that led to huge, push over a billion people into chronic food insecurity. It's horrible. So let's launch this called GeoGLAN Geo Global Monitoring that's going to use satellite data to give us information about, crop production globally.
[00:38:05] Some 40 odd years passed when. NASA first started doing it with Landsat. Within that GeoGLAM initiative, I was program and still in program scientist one of them. And my specific role is I work with the different space agencies in the world on developing new missions for agriculture.
[00:38:20] I basically advocate for the agriculture community to make sure we get the observations we need to do our analyses. what started out is very much this like food security, markets and trade kind of stuff. Segwayed over time, as the field grew, changed, ag tech blossoming, whatever it might be.
[00:38:38] And around 2019 2020 was when my specific focus started turning a little bit more, not stuff, but started zeroing in on the kind of farm level stuff. Because I got really interested in the way my discipline, my methods, my tools increasingly being used in the sort of sustainable ecosystem services marketplace.
[00:39:01] Without there being a whole lot of kind of methods, development, calibration, validation, like, yeah, we can, you know, create a map, but is it any good kind of thing? Or yeah, we can create a model, but does it work? People were coming to us with the NASA harvest name and the NASA kind of name and saying, can you validate this?
[00:39:17] Can you do And we all felt pretty strongly that our role was really to lift. votes for everyone. That's where we zeroed in on that topic wise in the Harvest Sustainable And Regenerative Agriculture Initiative, which we call Harvestera. I'm also the executive director of that. all these tools have advanced.
[00:39:35] The need has advanced. The audience's kind of openness has advanced. The kind of critical need for us to use agriculture as a tool belt to restore ecosystem health, soil health in rich communities and fight climate change, it all kind of needs to start at a baseline of understanding where we are and where we can go.
[00:39:54] And so I see satellite big part of that. This is all kind of coming together now. We still need the public sector's investment in terms of high quality observations. access, the lifting of the science in order for that to really take flight and be reliable and be good. that work that I've done for 12, 14, something like that, 13 years now through GeoGland with the space agencies has recently been morphing, into not just advocating for food security and market applications, but also saying, you guys, we got to think about ecosystem services.
[00:40:25] We have to think about sustainable management. Got to think about the precision. And so the space agencies are now receiving this message that there's a whole new set of value propositions for their data, but also the public sector pushing that direction.
[00:40:39] And then we like kind of push together. Toward impact.
[00:40:42] Craig Macmillan: one message that you would want to tell wine growers regarding this topic?
[00:40:46] Alyssa Whitcraft: Gosh, one message.
[00:40:48] Craig Macmillan: Two?
[00:40:51] Alyssa Whitcraft: Oh man, I guess you know, I think what a lot in my field don't think a lot about is quality Of the crops. We tend to think about quantity. Of the crops. and as a result, we can kind of answer use the wrong, use the wrong approach, answer the wrong question. And for specialty crops and I think, you know, what's finer than fine wine in, in terms of how much finesse you have to have from the 25 plus year old vines through bottling.
[00:41:20] What kind of needs a higher attention to quality I think that. for the grape growing community, particularly for wine and fine wine. they could maybe help shape this and push this, put out the demand there and say like, I don't need you to tell me how to absolutely maximize, make the like juiciest, wateriest, highest volume of berries.
[00:41:40] Like I need to know how to make the best quality. I need to know how to prevent losses related to extreme weather. I need to make sure I don't have my die that, I've been cultivating for so long to build these beautiful old growing and all that, they're more important than maybe they realize they are in this space and could push to really move our science and usership toward quality more than perhaps we have historically.
[00:42:03] Craig Macmillan: and I really appreciate you sharing that. This has all made me think about an interview that I did recently with an extensionist from Texas A& M we were chatting after the interview actually about climate change. She said, there is not a single grower in the state of Texas that is a climate denier.
[00:42:22] Everybody sees it. It is getting hotter. And things are changing and they're going to have to change. There's no doubt about it. And that reminds me of changes in other agro systems. over time whether it's changes in the way the soil fertility is, or changes in rainfall, or changes in disease patterns. I think there's applications, especially in areas that are suffering extreme stresses now, that'll apply to places that'll suffer extreme stresses, maybe a little bit later.
[00:42:49] So I think that's a great message that we can bring to These programs say, Hey, we need. And here's maybe how can we do it? How can we benefit from what you're already doing? I think that's a great message. Where can people find out more about you?
[00:43:01] Alyssa Whitcraft: if you want to find out more about NASA acres, you can go to org. If you want to find out more about the Harvest Sustainable and Regenerative Agriculture Initiative, that would be HarvestSara. org basically any program I've said today, you can just put a org at the end and it'll work. And if you want to learn about my family winery, it's WittcraftWinery. com And just shout out to my dad, my mom, and my brother for kind of sparking and maintaining my love of and interest in food and wine.
[00:43:33] Craig Macmillan: Yeah, And just on a personal note your dad, Chris was a mentor of mine. It was one of the first winemakers That I worked side by side with and had a huge impact on me. Especially around the idea of quality.
[00:43:43] Alyssa Whitcraft: Okay, so not to totally digress here, Maybe it's germane to the topic, which is I was pre med at UCLA. And I took a a geography general ed course called people in Earth's ecosystems just to fulfill a gen ed requirement and fell in love. And that professor bonded. and he did a lot of remote sensing of tropical I took his remote sensing class. We were supposed to. pick a and design it. And the picked was trying to. Compare every single metric that we could derive from satellite data for Conti, with, with some vineyards that my dad sourced from at the time so like Bien Nacido. Obeying these different vineyards and trying like in compare, I mean, it was the polar opposite of a robust study. I was like 20 and it was my first remote sensing class, but it really like capped my interest because trying to understand. Obviously there's the climate pieces to some degree, there's the soil pieces, but you know, my dad was the first or one of the first at least to do the blocks designation in wine.
[00:44:45] So he had N block and Q block and Bien Nacido. And I was like, well, what was it? characteristic that made them sort of different? Could you come up with that in a way, not that we should quantify and sanitize everything because there's certainly a je about these things, but like, what is it that creates quality, ?
[00:45:01] , and what of it is sort of biophysical in nature and could be measured and that kind of really sparked the interest that shaped the rest of my career.
[00:45:09] Craig Macmillan: That's fantastic. I really want to thank you for being on the podcast. Our guest today was Alyssa Whitcraft. She's executive director of NASA acres, fascinating conversation and tying together some pieces from previous podcasts. Yeah, just thanks for being a guest
[00:45:24] Beth Vukmanic: thank you for listening. Today's podcast was brought to you by, Baicor. A manufacturer of fertilizers, specializing in liquids for foliar and soil applications. By course, plant nutrients are 100% environmentally friendly and organically based. Each is specifically formulated to provide the optimum level of nutrients, plants need. Baicor's products. Are created from organic and amino acids found naturally in plants and in the soil. They use the finest natural materials. Blended scientifically to assure quality and effectiveness.
[00:46:02] Make sure you check out the show notes for links to Alyssa NASA harvest NASA acres plus sustainable Winegrowing podcast episodes 199 NASA satellites to detect grapevine diseases from space. And 233, the gap between space and farm ground-truthing satellite data models.
[00:46:21] If you'd like the show, do us a big favor by sharing it with a friend subscribing and leaving us a review. Until next time, this is a sustainable Winegrowing with the vineyard team.
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[00:00:00] As a member of a sustainably minded ag business, you have the potential to shape the way people view our food system.
[00:00:07] Welcome to marketing tip Monday with SIP Certified. We know that customers are looking for wines labeled as sustainable. While our longer-form episodes help you learn about the latest science and research for the wine industry. These twice-monthly micro podcasts will help you share your dedication to sustainable winegrowing.
[00:00:27] There is a dramatic difference between how consumers and producers understand sustainability. While, both groups have positive perceptions of sustainable agriculture. The general public has a much more limited understanding of it and even ranked sustainability as one of their top four least understood terms.
[00:00:48] Fostering a shared understanding from farm to table is key to turning sustainability into the norm. With that comes a healthier future for people and the planet. Part of the problem is that farmers themselves often don't have the time. Or the platform to communicate directly with consumers. But an educated and informed hospitality and sales team that's you can bridge the gap. And an easy way to start is by educating your team on what it means to be a sustainably minded business.
[00:01:19] Tolosa winery in the Edna valley of San Luis Obispo, California created a unique way to both teach their team about sustainability and involve them in their efforts. This week's marketing tip tells their story.
[00:01:33] With Tolosa is three PS groups. Employees were given the opportunity to experience sustainability firsthand.
[00:01:40] Each person could join a group that focused on one of the three pillars of sustainability people, planet and prosperity.
[00:01:47] Each of the groups would take their area of focus and work together to find ways to improve the businesses practices.
[00:01:53] First off the people group.
[00:01:55] This group focused on encouraging staff. Engagement safety communication and more. They looked into wage scales to ensure the staff was receiving fair pay And analyzed and improved safety procedures.
[00:02:08] Second up is the planet group.
[00:02:10] This group taught Tolosa's staff, new methods for recycling and composting, both at work and at home. When the company wanted to expand its solar field, the planet group researched soil profiles and growing conditions. On the company's property to identify the area that was least hospitable to vines. So it could be used for the expansion.
[00:02:30] And thirdly, the prosperity group,
[00:02:32] thanks to this group Tolosa, reduce their water by hundreds of thousands of gallons. Member's designed a water nozzle that eliminated the wineries open hose, water use. In fact, the nozzle is so good. It is now mandatory. Josh baker CEO says on average, this one small change resulted in some 380,000 gallons of water savings annually.
[00:02:56] While, participation in the groups is always optional. Employees were enthusiastic to join Josh notes, that the level of staff involvement. Was a bit of a surprise. People chose to take the extra time to be a part of it.
[00:03:09] Listen up SIP certified members offer your club members the chance to experience your and other SIP certified brands in February, 2025. ReSIProcal February is an annual month long event that offers tasting rooms. The opportunity to increase their traffic and connect with like-minded wine enthusiasts who value sustainability. We're enrolling participants now just go to sipcertified.org/join-resip-2025. To get signed up. You can also find that link in the show notes.
[00:03:43] Until next time, this is sustainable. Winegrowing with the vineyard team.
Nearly perfect transcription by Descript.
Resources: *** Tell Your Sustainable Story Online Course *** Apply for SIP Certified Wine Join ReSIProcal February 2025 Marketing Tips eNewsletter Sustainable Story | Print Sustainable Story | Electronic What's your Sustainable Story? Vineyard Team Programs: Juan Nevarez Memorial Scholarship - Donate SIP Certified – Show your care for the people and planet Sustainable Ag Expo – The premiere winegrowing event of the year Sustainable Winegrowing On-Demand (Western SARE) – Learn at your own pace Vineyard Team – Become a Member -
If you are dealing with vine mealybug in your vineyard, you are not alone. Kent Daane, Cooperative Extension Specialist at the University of California Berkley studies different types of mealybug populations across the globe.
Kent covers organic and conventional strategies, ways to increase the presence of generalist and specialist natural predators, and the importance of establishing refugia for beneficials.
His latest work focuses on area-wide management tactics. Looking to the European Grapevine Moth eradication program as an example, Kent sees an opportunity to decrease vine mealybug populations through neighborhood driven monitoring, trapping, coordinated sprays, and mating disruption.
Resources: 119: Vine Mealybug 101: Species Identification, Lifecycle, and Scouting to Create an IPM Program 130: The Biological Control of Vine Mealybug Using Mealybug Destroyers and Anagyrus Wasps Biology and management of mealybugs in vineyards Ecology and management of grapevine leafroll disease Impacts of Argentine ants on mealybugs and their natural enemies in California’s coastal vineyards Insecticides for a mealybug and a carpenter moth on vine trunks, 2023 In-season drip and foliar insecticides for a mealybug in grapes, 2023 In-Season Drip and Foliar Insecticides for a Mealybug in Grapes, 2021 Kent Daane Mealybug transmission of grapevine leafroll viruses: an analysis of virus–vector specificity Sustainable Control tools for Vine Mealybug UCCE Napa Viticulture Extension Leaf Hopper site Vineyard managers and researchers seek sustainable solutions for mealybugs, a changing pest complex Vineyard Team Programs: Juan Nevarez Memorial Scholarship - Donate SIP Certified – Show your care for the people and planet Sustainable Ag Expo – The premiere winegrowing event of the year Sustainable Winegrowing On-Demand (Western SARE) – Learn at your own pace Vineyard Team – Become a Member Get MoreSubscribe wherever you listen so you never miss an episode on the latest science and research with the Sustainable Winegrowing Podcast. Since 1994, Vineyard Team has been your resource for workshops and field demonstrations, research, and events dedicated to the stewardship of our natural resources.
Learn more at www.vineyardteam.org.
Transcript[00:00:00] Craig Macmillan: Welcome to Sustainable Wine Growing with Vineyard Team. Our guest today is Kent Daane. He is a Cooperative Extension Specialist with the University of California, Berkeley, and he works primarily out of the Kearney Agricultural Research and Extension Center. And today we're going to talk about a number of topics.
Thanks for being on the podcast, Kent.
[00:00:17] Kent Daane: Craig, thanks. I'm happy to be here.
[00:00:20] Craig Macmillan: Let's dive in on one pest that everybody's interested in, continuing to be interested in, and you may have some new insights or newer insights on this. Let's start with mealybug management. Kind of what's the state of the art in that topic right now?
[00:00:33] Kent Daane: Yeah, that's been the number one question I've been getting for many, many years now. It is an invasive pest. We know it came in, probably being brought in by a grower down in Coachella Valley. It has since spread into the San Joaquin Valley, Central Coast area where you are, Napa Sonoma, and it's been found now in Oregon.
Just like Napa, Oregon has attempted an eradication program. And probably just like Napa, most likely it's not going to work. It's a very, very difficult insect to kill 100%. I mean, I can come up with all kinds of different programs, soft programs, hard programs, expensive programs, inexpensive programs, where I can suppress that insect pest. It's very difficult to remove it from a vineyard. And that becomes important when you think about the kinds of damage we're worried about in Central Coast wine grapes.
Pretty much anywhere where they're looking at grape quality. But especially in the cooler regions. So, this insect, this mealybug, is one of many mealybug species. that is a vector of grape leaf roll associated viruses. And this is the primary reason it grows to such high pest status. So for the most part, the growers can knock its levels down far enough that it's not in the grape clusters or it's rarely found in the grape clusters. That's more of an issue for table grape growers. It's a cosmetic pest. When you look at some of the Regions in the San Joaquin Valley where they're growing a lot of table grapes Kern, Tulare, Kings, Fresno, counties, there's enough heat accumulation and these grapes are harvested early enough in the season that they can still build up their Brix. They can still get a very good grape to market. Even when there's some vinely bug on the vine, they just don't tend to be as impacted by this leaf roll pathogen as our wine grapes.
When you get into regions like San Luis Obispo, Napa, Monterey, Oregon, where they really are trying to hold those grapes on the vine for a longer period of time, trying to build up the bricks levels. That's where this. pathogen causes so much damage.
[00:03:06] Craig Macmillan: most of our growers are already going to be familiar with this, but what kind of damage does the vine mealybug cause? It's so, so terrible.
[00:03:12] Kent Daane: So the vine mealybug, besides being a vector of this pathogen, is also a direct pest of the grapevine. It can feed on the roots, on the trunk, on the leaves, and in the fruit. When this first hit California, we were working on it primarily as a San Joaquin Valley pest. growers that were putting on, you know, the products of the day dimethylate, lanate. If they were missing , the, target window where that pest was exposed, we would see thousands and thousands of mealybugs, not just per vine, but sometimes a thousand millibugs per leaf. It was causing defoliation. It was causing the berries to raisin on the vine. In South Africa, populations were getting so heavy. It was killing the vines themselves.
How many people out there 20, 30 years ago were spraying so many neonics as we're saying today? We weren't doing that. now really, we were spraying for leaf hoppers as our number one pests followed by mites in case there was a flare up. It changed what we were doing in terms of pest management. In fact there's a group of us working internationally. Not just on the vine mealybug, but other mealybug species, because we've seen vine mealybug, grape mealybug, citrus mealybug, all becoming more problematic over the last decade. And we're, asking that question, why? What has gone on? And one of the thoughts we've got, not yet shown, but one idea is that we just sprayed so many of these, these newer chemicals that the mealybugs are developing resistance, The natural enemies are not, and we're seeing an escape of some of these mealybug species in now a, to them, a pesticide lessened environment.
[00:05:10] Craig Macmillan: speaking of biological control, so this is an invasive pest, came from outside the U. S. That's the kinda the classical biological control problem. the pest comes, but its natural enemies don't come with it. there are some natural enemies of vine mealybug in the United States.
[00:05:24] Kent Daane: Yes, they are, and I don't want to go too deep in the weeds on this, but this is new, very exciting to me. I did an importation program, that's a classic biocontrol program, where we go to the pests, origin, we look for natural enemies and we bring those back to the United States. Growers can't do that.
It's got to go into quarantine. We have to study those natural enemies. Sometimes for years to make sure that they're not going to do any harm.
The classic example people think about is I've got a problem with rats. And so I bring in a weasel, the weasel kills all the rats, and then starts going after my chickens.
We don't do that anymore. Classic biocontrol is now much more modern. We've got all kinds of protective barriers against making a mistake. In fact, I think that we've gone a little bit too far. I think we're overly cautious.
Bringing this back to the Vine melaybug, I imported material from Europe, from Israel, from Egypt, and from South Africa. We were finding mostly the same species in most of these different regions. The two most important species at that time were called Anagyrus pseudococci, which is The well known parasitoid that you can purchase from insectaries. The other one is Coxydoxinoides peregrinus, no common name on these insects. Both are established in California.
When I did this work, we noticed a difference between the anagyrus near species Pseudococci that we were getting in Sicily and Spain with the material that we were getting that had already been established from Israel
and what we're finding in northern Italy. Working with a taxonomist, Sergei Trapitsin he found some significant differences between these. And later on after both were imported in the United States determined that these were two species, one still Anagyrus pseudocoxi and one Anagyrus vladimiri. So sometimes you'll see insectaries selling Anagyrus vladimiri and you think, Oh, I want that.
That's different. It is different, but both are established in California. We're actually going to do a followup study. now in collaboration with this international group to find out what we've got in California. I suspect we've got both. Now, why is this exciting? Because at the time we were doing this work, we felt like the parasites were different, and we felt that these different groups that we were importing, maybe one had co evolved with the citrus mealybug, And the other with the vine mealybug. And we had already done some work with the vine mealybug, molecular work, looking at its relationship to each other around the world. and their names are, scientific names would be citrus mealybug, planococcus citri. Vine mealybug, we knew as planococcus ficus, which means, Ficus tree, fig tree. And we were showing that this group was, they had an outlier and ours was the outlier. And then working with this international group, they said, look, back in the fifties, there was a planococcus vitis. And I think what you've got, what we've got on vines, is the vine mealybug. But not in Iran and Iraq at that time.
And, and maybe in that Mediterranean region Israel, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Turkey the Mesopotamian region, I think is what it is. Maybe there are some parasites there that we didn't have. Certainly, my colleague in Egypt and more parasites than we were finding in Europe. We just weren't able to get them all to establish in colony in quarantine. So it opens up the window that, that maybe there's something still out there. At this point in time, I say in all the countries where vine mealybug is reported as a problem, that's most of Europe Mexico, South America South Africa. We have the best of those parasites.
We just want to delve deeper into what are we seeing in Turkey? How does that match up with what we know is in Egypt? And I do have colleagues in Iran. It's just harder for me to go there.
[00:10:09] Craig Macmillan: right, of course. so this makes me think, is it possible that we have mixed populations of these mealybugs in California on the same plant, so it's different areas?
[00:10:17] Kent Daane: So that's the project we're working on with this international group. What we decided to do in a three part approach is to first find out what everyone's got.
The assumption is that in South America, In the United States, North America, we have got single invasion events. Our guess is that it arrived in the U S in Coachella and Mexico at the same time. We're pretty sure that the population they have in Peru is from California Yeah, they were bringing nursery wood in and lo and behold, they found vine mealybug. We went down to look at a nomatode problem to be honest with some UC California researchers. And we found that they had some mite problems at the same mites that we've got in North American California. So they were probably not being very cautious in what they were importing. So we're assuming that South America's got this California group which came from Israel. We know Israel and Egypt have something very similar, but it's different than most of Europe. South Africa is similar to Portugal and Spain, which makes sense with the trade routes that were going on in the 1960s. What we're guessing is that The European groups, there probably are, there's reported failures of vine mealybug mating disruption in some European areas. And we think that probably is this other mealybug that is probably in Turkey. So it's all very exciting to me, kind of delving deeper into the weeds on this. But the first part of this international group, again, a great group of people, Europe, South America our first part is what do we all have? Our second part is what we're doing a grower survey that we actually sent to the vineyard team and they spread out to some growers as well.
What are, what are growers using to control the mealybug? Because maybe with some of the, we find out what it is and maybe growers are working harder to control our vine mealybug than say that the fig millebug which appears to be what they've got in most of Europe.
Remember when I started the foreign exploration when I was in Spain growers would tell me yeah we've got the vine millebug but it really is not much of a pest. Citrus millebug on vines is more of a pest. Well they probably have that fig mealybug but
[00:13:01] Craig Macmillan: Ah,
[00:13:01] Kent Daane: You know, taxonomically, it looked to us like the vine mealybug.And I hope I'm not throwing all these things out and it's confusing.
So, second part, that is, the survey. What do you have and what are you using to control it? And if it matches up that, yeah, what we've got is the one that's more difficult, that fills in a lot of boxes. Third and fourth part are now looking at the natural controls.
What parasites are you getting coming off of this? What parasites are in your region? And how do they respond to the pheromones that we know are out there? So if they're not, if they're responding to both citrus and vine, maybe that's an indication that it's this other group. If they're not responding at all, or weakly, yeah, we've, we've got three or more distinct species. And we can't tell them apart, but maybe the parasites can.
[00:13:56] Craig Macmillan: this is kind of a practical question. hoW do you monitor parasitic wasps? They're tiny. They live in refugia. They then come out and plant their eggs in their host. that seems like a really hard thing to do.
[00:14:10] Kent Daane: That's an absolute fantastic question. So let's look at that most common parasite, Antigyrus Pseudococci slash Vladimiri. So what we found over the years is that it does a great job on mealybugs that are exposed in the fruit, on the leaves, on the cane. By the end of the season, if you're not putting on a lot of contact chemicals, you're getting greater than 40 percent parasitism. Very easy to see,
[00:14:43] Craig Macmillan: Right.
[00:14:43] Kent Daane: doesn't do very well against the mealybugs under the bark, because it's got this searching behavior where it's got to get on top of the mealybug, determine how big it is, do I want to put a an egg that's not fertilized in that, which would be a male, and they need smaller mealybugs for that. Do I want to put an egg which is fertilized? In that, that will become a female parasite that needs larger host.
[00:15:09] Craig Macmillan: the same insect, the same parasite has the ability to do either.
[00:15:13] Kent Daane: Yes.
[00:15:15] Craig Macmillan: Wow.
[00:15:15] Kent Daane: again, this is really a neat subject and I hope I don't bore the audience too much. But, a lot of these parasites that become important for mealybugs they have this little sac, so you've got your oviduct going to your ovarioles, in the female.
And right around the oviduct area, before it splits into the two ovarioles, you've got this little sac called the spermatheca. unlike humans, where the sperm goes in and Seeks out the eggs and fertilizes it. The sperm go in and the female parasite stores them in the spermatheca. And then as the eggs are mature and ready to go down, oviduct and get ready to be oviposited into the mealybug, the female decides to fertilize the egg or not fertilize it.
And if it's fertilized, it becomes a female. If it's not fertilized, it becomes a male. And that allows her to determine what the host size is, because the females are bigger than the males. And so she will walk up and down. and size that mealybug and say that this, this mealybug is a good enough size that this is worthy for me to put a fertilized egg in and that will become a female.
Or a second in store mealybug, she'll say, this really isn't that good of a mealybug host. So I'm going to put An unfertilized egg, and that will become a male. And that was, going back to this Anagyrus Vladimiri versus Pseudococci, that was the most important difference that we found in this Sicilian and Spanish group of Anagyrus, was that they would oviposit and put females in smaller hosts than the male. earlier parasite which probably evolved on the citrus mealybug.
So going back to this question because I do go off on different tangents. How do you sample for these things? So it's really easy to find a mummified mealybug on a leaf. But remember what we're doing. We're spraying now a lot of Movento and we're spraying a lot of the Neonics regardless of its Admire, Platinum, or generic derivative. They're all good materials. and maybe you're putting on an IGR like a plot, again, all good materials, Assail, all good materials. What they tend to do is work really good against the mealy bug, which is exposed on the leaves. Our systemic materials are really good at going out to the leaves. Our contact materials, our IGRs, the neonics, that are contacts kill the mealybug that's exposed. All of these materials do less of a good job with the mealybug underneath the bark.
we're not getting a true indication of what these parasites can do because we're killing the host that's the best location for them to attack. So that means to really find out what's going on, you got to strip bark oftentimes. So now you're looking at parasitism in that region of the vine that the parasite doesn't like to be. Now, if we add to this, this other good parasite, which is the coccidoxoenoides peregrinus, we really liked to bring this in because it attacks the very, very small stages of the mealybug, the first and the second instar. It's sometimes a small third, but really it's focused on the second instar.
[00:19:05] Craig Macmillan: Got it.
[00:19:06] Kent Daane: It's in California. You can find it, but it's really hard to find out what impact it's got because it will parasitize the mealybug and will cause the parasitized mealybug to die. to feel sick and to seek out some area for protection because the anagyrus if you see that mealybug parasitized on the leaf causes that mealybug to kind of glue itself down to the leaf You have to flip that thing to get it off the leaf.
A mummy is a dead mealybug which sticks to the leaf. The coccydox anoides causes the mealybug to find a place of protection because it doesn't stick it to the leaf. So it often times goes to the trunk, or goes to the stem, and eventually falls off the vine, and will pupate down into the ground.
And so to sample for that one, you have to collect them as first or second instars live, bring them back to the insectary, and rear them out to the parasite, which is just really a lot of work hard to do. so these things are far more difficult to do. Sample four, then going out and counting, you know, aphid parasites, which are just out there as little brown mummified aphids.
[00:20:29] Craig Macmillan: it sounds like this would play a role in my timing of my insecticide applications, whether it's Spirotetramat or Neonic or One of the programs that I think is common is to have spirotetramat on top and have a myothiamethoxam soil applied. Does that sound right?
[00:20:47] Kent Daane: Yeah, that sounds right. I mean, they're both good products and they're doing what they're supposed to do. they're killing the mealybug. And when the timing is right, they're getting out there before the mealybug. So as the mealybug is going out towards the leaves. You know, they're probably doing a better job than the parasite will do on its own.
Now, if you are an organic grower and you can't use those materials, then timing does become a little bit more critical because you're putting on, oftentimes, organic materials every 10 to 14 days because they've got a shorter residual. So on those you may want to, you know, work your timing around to avoid to give it a window of opportunity some of these natural enemies. There you're looking on the leaf, you're looking for mummified mealybugs. You know, are, do I have some of these good natural enemies in the field? You're looking for the mealybug destroyer, or one of the other beetles. Green lancelings are also doing a pretty good job. So you're monitoring those. And maybe you're deciding, I've got a lot of good activity maybe I should wait to put on pyganic or one of the other materials, which is broad spectrum give the other parasites a chance, a cycle, to see what their impact's going to be on that millibug population. Or maybe you're going to leave every fifth row unsprayed to let the parasites come back in and then hit that row later. So you've got a chance for those natural enemies to move the just sprayed vines.
[00:22:22] Craig Macmillan: That was going to be my next question is what is the refugee situation for these parasites? Do they come into the vineyard, do their thing and then leave? Do they come in when there is host and then they hang out in the vineyard for the rest of the season? Do we know? I'm just thinking about ways that I can preserve, conserve those parasites as much as possible so that they're there when I need them.
[00:22:45] Kent Daane: That's a great question, Craig. And let's break this apart into two different areas. Let's talk about First, the generalist predators that I just mentioned, the green lacewings, a good mealybug predator against the smaller mealybug stages. A lot of the things we do to enhance natural enemies will enhance generalist predators.
So that's where your cover crops come in. That's where your pollen and nectar come in. You'll increase generalist predators. Ladybird beetles, green lacewings, minute pyre bugs, those can all attack and kill. That same group of cover cropping that brings in the gentleness predator may have little impact on the specialized parasitoids.
Things like the anagyrus and the coccidocsinoides, what they want is the mealybugs. And not all mealybugs will do. They really want the mealybugs that are better hosts for them. So, they tend to get everything they need out of that pest population. They can host feed. They can stick their ovipositor into a mealybug, turn around and feed on some of that exudate, some of what's being bled.
The mealybug creates honeydew. That honeydew, instead of trying to plant a cover crop for honeydew, that honeydew serves as a food to increase the longevity of those parasitoids.
And as the mealybug density goes down, the parasite numbers should go down as well. Now there are different kinds of food sprays that we hope to look at that oftentimes do help increase both generalists and perhaps specialist natural enemies.
[00:24:46] Craig Macmillan: Hm.
[00:24:46] Kent Daane: The number one thing you do to to enhance beneficial insect numbers is to watch the broad spectrum insecticide sprays or to time them where you're not spraying, you know, all 100 acres at the same time, but you're leaving a refugia so they can move back in.
[00:25:08] Craig Macmillan: Interesting. So, I might be looking at something and saying, okay, I am going to have to take some action here. I'm hitting an action threshold but not pull the trigger on the whole thing. leave one area for a little bit, and then can you come back and treat that later, so that you're preserving some of these folks, and then they can come back on the other side, and find a balance between the chemical and the biological.
Mm
[00:25:31] Kent Daane: Right. A balance, a delay might just be 10 days, might be 20 days. We don't want to miss our spray window, but remember, Most of the natural enemies are winged as adults, whereas the female mealybug is never winged.
Fairly slow, fairly thestle. So that allows for those beneficials to come back in. And if you're a large grower this just happens over over the course because you can't spray 100 acres in a day.
[00:26:07] Craig Macmillan: Right. Right. Fascinating. Are growers starting to adopt, in your experience with the folks that you work with, are growers starting to adopt these kinds of timings and techniques and methods?
[00:26:19] Kent Daane: I think growers are constantly adopting, improving, changing one of the common misconceptions when I talk to students or people who just don't don't know how to farm or farmers is that farmers really don't want to spray.
Spraying costs money. it is an added expenditure, added time, added worry. So they'd much rather, you know, go back 50 years when we didn't have all these invasive insects from Vine mealybug to Virginia Creeper growers are always seeking out how to improve the insecticide materials they've got, how to reduce the insecticide applications they have to make. And that does include natural enemies, mating disruption. What it comes down to is just costs. So oftentimes there's a trade off.
If you're going to use mating disruption, you may not be doing three applications of an insecticide for vine mealybug. Maybe it's one insecticide plus vine mealybug mating disruption. If you're organic and you're releasing beneficial insects and spraying every other week. Maybe you don't have the cost for mating disruption. So these are all decisions that individual growers have to make. Obviously we've got some growers in some regions can spend 300 per acre for mealybug control. Other growers simply cannot do that because of the value of, their product at the very end.
[00:28:03] Craig Macmillan: Right.
This is kind of a natural lead in to something I wanted to touch on, and that is the Virginia Creeper leafhopper that's found on the North Coast. That also an invasive, correct? Came in from outside.
[00:28:15] Kent Daane: It is invasive to some extent. It is not invasive like the vine mealybug is from. The Mediterranean region Virginia creeper most likely is, is North American. But yes, it was never really a California leafhopper pest. It was, no England, Canada. Pest that then went into Washington, then went into Oregon, that then came into California. interestingly, the, leafhopper that I worked on for so many years the variegated grape leafhopper probably North American, probably had a different avenue, probably came up from the south, from Mexico, Texas, to Arizona, to California. So Some of our invasives are close relatives.
[00:29:07] Craig Macmillan: Interesting. what's the difference in damage that's caused by the Virginia creep leaf hopper and the the variegated leaf hopper.
[00:29:17] Kent Daane: So they're, they're very similar.
I think that the grape leafhopper is the one we've been dealing with for the longest time and has been relatively mild compared to the other two.
The variegated grape leafhopper When it first came into the San Joaquin Valley, it could defoliate vines. It had three to four generations per year.
[00:29:42] Craig Macmillan: Oh, wow.
[00:29:43] Kent Daane: It seemed to be much more damaging than the grape leafhopper.
Virginia creeper leafhopper, now in northern California, making its way south. So it's gotten to the middle of the state. It's in Napa, Sonoma, Sacramento. I have not seen it. Heard it reported in the Fresno area. Oh, it has been reported in Fresno.
But I'm not saying it causes much damage here. We really don't get many leaf hopper reports for damage here, except for organic growers. And that's because all the sprays for vine mealybug.
Most of those vine mealybug sprays are very good against the leaf hoppers. Where I have seen it as a pest. It's been mostly in wine grapes. Mostly in the cooler regions of the state. Mostly controlled by conventional insecticides. There are programs organic materials registered for Virginia creeper that I think have done a fairly good job. But it, it does get out of hand. And I think for all these leaf hoppers with organic materials, what happens is that The organic products tend to not work well , against the leaf operant in the egg stage or the leaf operant in the adult stage.
So timing is very important. You want to get those materials on. when egg hatch is nearly complete and when you've got mostly first and second instars out there. That's because most of our organic products tend to impact these pests by either being a desiccant like the soaps that dry it out or a suffocant like the oils that clog the spiracles. And so the the, adults just fly away from that tractor rig as it's coming down.
The eggs are protected inside the leaf itself, in their little clusters for the Virginia Creeper. And the larger insects can, they're just more mobile. So it's hard to kill them. So timing becomes relatively critical with these insects. I've not worked directly with Virginia creeper other than hosting Houston Wilson did his graduate work in my lab and really focused on, on the parasites of this insect.
Lucia Varela, now retired, did focus on looking at the different insecticides and she's got a nice summary article which is on Monica Cooper's website. It talks about the different insecticides, U C cooperative extension Napa County.
And she's got a website that goes into materials for organic growers for Virginia creeper leaf hopper. I think that's where I saw. that information posted. And what Houston did was he just looked at and tried to improve the Enneagrus. So we get those two confused. The Lilybug parasite is Anagyrus. The Leafhopper parasite is Enneagrus.
The two names sound pretty similar, but one is an inserted family and one is a Mimerit. Or a fairy fly, fairy winged fly. They're some of the smallest insects known. So,
[00:33:03] Craig Macmillan: Wow.
So, we are continuing to look at these new parasites, how they're performing, we're learning a lot more about them, and we're learning a lot more about timing of different kinds of sprays around their life cycle.
[00:33:17] Kent Daane: Yeah, what Houston was trying to do was to understand why parasitism against the Virginia creeper leafhopper was against all the leafhoppers. Why parasitism was relatively low. So I was working with Danny Gonzales and Sergei Tripitsin,
And just mentioning to the taxonomist, Sergei, that it seemed like there were differences amongst these Enneagris samples that we were releasing.
And I had happened to save all of the material that had died. So I sent that to Sergei, and Sergei looked at these things closely and then said, look, we've got a complex of parasites. And he named Enneagris erythronureae. After the species that was most commonly attacking variegated grape leafhopper, which is Erythronere variabilis. There was another one, and he called a Negris tryptocova, which was named after his wife's father's family and he said that was the better looking one of the group. And there was one that just didn't do that much. And he named that after me, a Negris Dana. And so that one we thought was the one attacking the western grape leaf hopper most commonly. And it was being found more commonly in the riparian zone. So that's 20 years ago, fast forward to our new invasive leaf hopper, the Virginia creeper leaf hopper, which is again coming down from Canada to Washington to Oregon to California. Well, it ends up that the Enneagris deni is very important attacking that leaf hopper.
So Houston was working out the relationship of these three parasites against these three leaf hoppers and trying to understand if he could manipulate their numbers to improve biocontrol. He looked at hedgerows, he looked at augmentative releases or inoculative releases, and we're still curious to see if that can't be improved even.
[00:35:30] Craig Macmillan: That's fantastic. Another topic that I wanted to touch on, because it's a really cool idea, and I think we'll have applications across a lot of things eventually, and that is area wide pest management strategies. And I know that you've done a lot of work in this area from the beginning, really, of kind of the concept.
What is an area wide pest management strategy? Management program. What does it look like? What can it what is its goal? How does it operate? What kind of success we've seen so far?
[00:35:59] Kent Daane: Yeah, that's a fantastic question. It's a topic I'm really excited about and let's think about it when we think about the European grapevine model. that was another invasive insect,
It was found in California, it was found in Chile around the same time. So you've got this invasive insect, and the state of California deemed this important enough to have an eradication program.
[00:36:22] Craig Macmillan: Oh and just real quick. What kind of damage does grapevine moth do?
[00:36:26] Kent Daane: So the European Greenvine Moth it'll feed on the vine, but it gets in the fruit clusters. think of the omnivorous leaf roller One of those, one of our tortricid pests that can really cause damage to the grape a number of generations per year, a lot of different possibilities where it might come from in terms of a host plant material.
So it can be very problematic. It would require a spray every single year, an additional spray for a tortricid pest, if it were to establish.
[00:37:00] Craig Macmillan: one the big issue here is that it attacks the berries directly
[00:37:03] Kent Daane: absolutely.
[00:37:04] Craig Macmillan: Okay. So that's a, that's a serious problem.
[00:37:07] Kent Daane: No, no, the, it, it causes mold and rot and everything else once it gets in there. So, you know, two or three doesn't seem like a lot. You just think, well, berry can go to crush, but that berry will get all kinds of bunch rot.
not a good fruit. So when you think about the eradication program, where there was monitoring everywhere in the state. When you think about the eradication program, where when they found this pest through pheromone traps, and then they did a ground search to find out where it was. And then there was a coordinated investigation. Effort to spray the right materials, to use mating disruption, to go after it in all of the adjoining areas. those eradication programs are very intense. Area wide control programs.
So, let's think about Vine mealybug, which is now in most vineyards. We're still approaching this on an individual grower basis.
We might have one grower using mating disruption, because they're going to go organic, and a next door neighbor doing nothing. There's going to be constant movement of that pest into that grower's. field We might have two growers, one using Movento every other year, and another using Platinum every other year. Those males are going back and forth between those vineyards, sharing whatever genetic resistance that they're developing.
And so really, if those growers are switching, one's using Movento, one's using Platinum that insect is moving between those vineyards all the time. And it's not a resistance management program,
or you might have a small five acre grower deciding to put out mating disruption. Mating disruption works better blanketing the whole area. So an area wide program, and then you bring into it the idea of roguing leaf roll diseased vines.
there are two things I just mentioned in this last 30 seconds that are so important for area wide management of mealybug and leaf roll that are the killers to those programs.
The first is mating disruption still costs more money than a pesticide application. It's a fantastic tool. It is a tool that works better the lower and lower the mealybug density gets.
So you use insecticides to really drop the mealybug population down, but there gets to be a point where the mealybugs are now on the bark. There are little populations here and there, and we know the insecticides are never 100 percent. Mating disruption works better. The lower the milli buck density is.
[00:40:05] Craig Macmillan: Got it.
[00:40:06] Kent Daane: But there's a cost to it. So we start with insecticides. The next part is the rowing of the infected vines.
That's very important on an area wide basis because if you're planting, you've had, vineyard is old, it's not productive, it's had leaf roll. You pull it out, but it's right next to a block that's got 80 percent infected vines. You're always going to have new infections showing up over and over and over again.
Unless that grower next to you is just doing this bang up job of applying insecticides all the time to keep mealybugs from going into your vineyard. you can make area wide control work for the pathogen. and the pest.
But in the best world, let's say you're in control of a thousand acres, pull out every vineyard that's infected and replant and then pull out every new infection in it. And people just can't afford this.
[00:41:06] Craig Macmillan: Right.
[00:41:07] Kent Daane: if you're managing 200, 300 acres and Your vineyard with leaf roll that's at 30 percent is still profitable. it's hard to pull out those 30%.
It's just hard to do. I get it. But something that I wish we could get, you know, government subsidy for to, to have them help us come in, pull out the infected vines, start clean again. But it does work. It's worked in South Africa. It's worked in New Zealand. It's worked in Napa. It just comes at a cost that may be prohibitive in some regions, in some areas. So the best we can do is to manage mealybug and the disease incidence in an area wide manner.
[00:41:52] Craig Macmillan: if I remember correctly, I mean, the work has been done now that, demonstrates roguing is your best strategy overall long term, but it's expensive short term. and that is the issue. That's the tricky bit.
[00:42:06] Kent Daane: There are two tricky bits to it. The first tricky bit is the expense you just talked about. The second tricky bit is that in most of the regions where we know it's worked They have not been dealing, perhaps, with our vine mealybug. They've been dealing with the grape mealybug, long tail mealybug, obscure mealybug. we've got I think the worst mealybug. And maybe that mealybug is just better at surviving on root remnants.
You know, you hear all the time from growers, I r I've been removing 10 percent of my vineyard every single year for five years. And when I looked at The south African data, they removed 20%. Second year, 5%. Third year, 3%. Fourth year, 1%. And after that, it was always 1%.
[00:42:54] Craig Macmillan: last piece of this puzzle in my mind is you have to get your neighbors to cooperate. That's the area wide bit. You have to get people to get on the same page in terms of what they're doing. And it sounds to me like they don't necessarily have to be doing exactly the same thing. They just have to be sensitive to what somebody else wants to do.
Does that sound right?
[00:43:15] Kent Daane: There are areas where it has worked well. It can work in the Central Coast. It can work in Lodi. We may not see, you know, eradication of diseased vines. We may not see a reduction of vine mealybug to a point where we can treat every other year. We might be treating every single year. for this, but we can improve what we're doing through communication right now.
In the central Valley, we're working with a great group of growers where we're just mapping out the vine mealybug and we're sharing with the growers where the melaybug populations are. It's their decision. What? What to use, what to do for control. It's their decision. Can they rogue or not rogue?
But what we're trying to do is to help foster communication amongst the different growers that are neighbors, because we're a third party, which I think helps a little bit. it would be fantastic if we could have someone hired as a scout or PCA, where we work with. PCAs in the region and everyone shares data. We're trying a new computer program this year, which we at the end of the season, we'll launch with our collaborating growers where they can log on in real time. and see what the trap counts are as we count those trap counts. And that will help them make a decision, we hope, on what to do in terms of control measures. But again, the best thing might be that we're opening up communication, just as the Vineyard team is doing through podcasts, through field days, through the website.
[00:44:55] Craig Macmillan: Well, let's hope. And I, and there's a number of other organizations too. the, the group in Lodi has done a fantastic job from what I understand. Fostering communication and sharing information. like you said, I think that's probably one of our, our, our best hopes. Is working collaboratively as an industry and getting communication between the experts like PCAs and the extension community. .
[00:45:15] Kent Daane: And of course, anyone can always reach out to me with questions as well.
[00:45:18] Craig Macmillan: Fantastic. And we'll put your information in the show notes. I want to thank you for being on the podcast. fantastic. Very helpful and very, very exciting. I think I was feeling a little more dismal about this whole topic coming into this interview than I am now. I think there's maybe more potential than I was kind of giving credit.
I, you know, I come from a time back in the 90s when Vine Mealybugs showed up in the Central Coast. And it was a lot of gnashing of teeth and pulling of hair, and we did not know what to do, and the damage was insane. I mean, I saw stuff that was just blood curdling, and I think we've come a long way.
We've come a long way, and that's from the efforts of folks like you, so I really appreciate it. I want to thank our guest, Kent Daane. He is a Cooperative Extension Specialist with the University of California, Berkeley. he works primarily out of the Kearney Ag Research Extension Center. And, thanks so much for being on the podcast.
This is great.
[00:46:10] Kent Daane: Thank you very much. Enjoy the harvest time coming up.
Nearly perfect transcription by Descript
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[00:00:00] Beth Vukmanic: You're tasting room is more than just a place to try your wines. It is also what your guests visualize when they hear your name or senior wine on the shelf. And it's what they tell their friends and family about when they recall their last visit.
[00:00:14] Welcome to marketing tip Monday with sip certified, we know that customers are looking for wines labeled as sustainable while our longer form episodes help you learn about the latest science and research for the wine industry. These twice monthly micro podcasts will help you share your dedication to sustainable wine growing.
[00:00:32] Does your tasting room offer a memorable experience?
[00:00:36] There are so many ways to make wine tasting special for tasters of any kind. Templeton based Castro Cellars has it down. They're tasting room constantly offers unique opportunities for visitors to learn something new and make memories.
[00:00:51] The first two examples are for the music lovers. Every Sunday from may through October. . We're hosts, lazy locals. These free concerts invite music, lovers and wine enthusiasts to wind down and enjoy an evening of entertainment. While sipping their sustainably produced wines.
[00:01:08] And if one band isn't enough. Guests can make a weekend of it at the Whale Rock Music and Arts Festival. This all ages, summer event welcomes visitors to enjoy live music, local vendors, yoga and beverages galore, including wine, beer, cider, and spirits.
[00:01:25] In addition to providing a unique tasting and entertainment experience, the event has an altruistic purpose. Proceeds from the Fest are donated to the Templeton Instrumental Music Boosters Association. A volunteer organization that is dedicated to enhancing the experiences of Templeton high school musicians.
[00:01:43] The second two activities are for the active
[00:01:46] Wine tasting doesn't just have to be tasting wine.
[00:01:49] Offer an opportunity to get active.
[00:01:52] Castoro Cellars has an all level yoga class led by their in-house Yogi Lauren Udsen. It is the perfect way to start the day after the one hour class, students are invited to enjoy a delicious brunch and sparkling beverages.
[00:02:05] To keep the blood pumping guests can get up close to the vines at the Whale Rock Disc Golf course, this 18 hole course. Is set in their, SIP certified and organically farmed Whale, Rock vineyard.
[00:02:17] And the final two experiences are for the learners. Many vineyards offer tours. They're a great way to show off your vines and educate your guests about your unique history and farming practices. Why not kick it up a notch.
[00:02:30] Vine cycle e-bike vineyard tours offer . Castoro's tourists, the opportunity to learn about their sustainable and organic farming practices while ebiking through the vineyard. After the two hour cycle guests relax, tableside and enjoy wine tasting and fresh lunch from the daily food truck.
[00:02:48] Some people who are new to the world of wine are intimidated by all there is to know. Castoro also offers intimate, informative classes to teach the basics of wine tasting. Students gain an understanding of wines, intricacies and develop the tasting skills. They need to get the most out of their future tasting experiences.
[00:03:07] So let us know, how will you make your next tasting and experience?
[00:03:12] Listen up SIP certified members. Offer your club members, a chance to experience your and other SIP certified brands in February, 2025. ReSIProcal February is the annual month long event that offers tasting rooms. The opportunity to increase their traffic and connect with like-minded brands and wine enthusiasts who value sustainability.
[00:03:33] We're enrolling participants now. Just go to sipcertified.org/join-resip- 2025. To get signed up.
[00:03:44] Until next time, this is sustainable. Winegrowing with the vineyard team.
Nearly perfect transcription by Descript.
Resources: *** Tell Your Sustainable Story Online Course *** Apply for SIP Certified Wine Join ReSIProcal February 2025 Marketing Tips eNewsletter Sustainable Story | Print Sustainable Story | Electronic What's your Sustainable Story? Vineyard Team Programs: Juan Nevarez Memorial Scholarship - Donate SIP Certified – Show your care for the people and planet Sustainable Ag Expo – The premiere winegrowing event of the year Sustainable Winegrowing On-Demand (Western SARE) – Learn at your own pace Vineyard Team – Become a Member -
To celebrate California Wine Month, we're highlighting winners of the California Green Medal Award. Allison Jordan, Executive Director at the California Sustainable Winegrowing Alliance shares the sustainable practices unique to each of this year’s winners. From farm hiking trails open to the community to a bio fuel powered fleet, you’ll be inspired by these stories.
Make sure you listen to the end. Our host Craig works at Niner Wine Estates, the 2023 Green Medal Business Award Winner. He has great insights into the benefits of applying for the Green Medal that extend beyond earning the award.
I have enjoyed working with the Green Medal on the steering committee and as a judge. If you are a California vineyard or winery, I encourage you to visit greenmedal.org to apply. Applications open in November of 2024.
Resources: 206: The Best Newsletter You Can Send | Marketing Tip Monday 231: Stacking Regenerative Practices to Create a Healthy Vineyard 2024 Green Medal Award Winners Allison Jordan Green Medal Awards Vineyard Team Programs: Juan Nevarez Memorial Scholarship - Donate SIP Certified – Show your care for the people and planet Sustainable Ag Expo – The premiere winegrowing event of the year Sustainable Winegrowing On-Demand (Western SARE) – Learn at your own pace Vineyard Team – Become a Member Get MoreSubscribe wherever you listen so you never miss an episode on the latest science and research with the Sustainable Winegrowing Podcast. Since 1994, Vineyard Team has been your resource for workshops and field demonstrations, research, and events dedicated to the stewardship of our natural resources.
Learn more at www.vineyardteam.org.
Transcript[00:00:06] Beth Vukmanic: To celebrate California wine month. We're highlighting winners of the California green metal award.
[00:00:11] Welcome to sustainable wine growing with the vineyard team, where we bring you the latest in science and research for the wine industry. I'm Beth Vukmanic executive director at vineyard team. Since 1994, we've brought you the latest science-based practices, experts, growers, and wine industry tools through both in-field and online education, so that you can grow your business. Please raise a glass with us as we cheers to 30 years.
[00:00:36] In today's podcast Craig Macmillan, critical resource manager at Niner wine estates with long time sip certified vineyard and the first ever sip certified winery. Speaks with. Alison Jordan executive director at the California sustainable wine growing Alliance. She shares the sustainable practices, unique to each of this year's green metal winners. From farm hiking trails, open to the community, to a biofuel powered fleet. You'll be inspired by these stories. And make sure you listen to the end.
[00:01:07] Our host Craig works at Niner wine estates winner of the 2023 business award. He has some great insights into the benefits of applying for the green metal that extend beyond earning the achievement.
[00:01:19] I personally have had the pleasure of serving on the green metal steering committee. And as a judge, if you're a California vineyard or winery, I encourage you to visit green metal.org to apply applications open in November of 2024.
[00:01:34] Do you want access to the latest viticulture research and technology from the world's top experts, then you won't want to miss the premiere Winegrowing event of the year, the sustainable ag expo. Enjoy the perfect blend of in-person and online learning. Speak directly with national experts, earn over 20 hours of continuing education and explore sustainable ag vendors. It all takes place November 11th through 13th, 2024 in San Luis Obispo, California. As a listener to this podcast, take $50 off of your ticket. When you use code podcast 24 at checkout. Get yours today at sustainableagexpo.org. Now let's listen in.
[00:02:14] Craig Macmillan: Our guest today is Allison Jordan. She is executive director of a California sustainable wine growing alliance. And today we're going to be talking about the green medal awards. Hey allison, thanks for being on the podcast.
[00:02:30] Allison Jordan: Great to be with you. thanks so much for having me.
[00:02:32] Craig Macmillan: So let's start with some basics. What is the California sustainable wine growing alliance? And in particular, what is it? What are its goals? And what's it doing to achieve those goals?
[00:02:42] Allison Jordan: Well, the California Sustainable Wine Growing Alliance is a partnership that was created by Wine Institute and the California Association of Wine Grape Growers back in 2003 as a nonprofit organization that's all about promoting sustainability from grapes to glass. some of the ways that we do that, especially the whole idea of encouraging adoption of sustainable wine growing practices is also around communicating about it so we can really tell the story about California's leadership in sustainability.
[00:03:14] And we do that through education, through outreach, through certification, and also through partnerships. So for instance, the vineyard team is a great partner of ours and us. Fantastic work. Not only in the central coast, but also throughout the state.
[00:03:31] Craig Macmillan: Thank you. I know that we've really enjoyed and benefited from our work with you. And also around the Green Medal Awards. what exactly are the Green Medal Awards? how did that come about? What was the purpose of creating the awards?
[00:03:45] Allison Jordan: So during Down to Earth Month each April, which is a chance to really highlight California wine community sustainability leadership we also celebrate the California Green Medal. The full name of the awards is the California Green Medal Sustainable Wine Growing Leadership Awards. And it's our way of recognizing industry leaders.
[00:04:06] So those who wineries and vineyards that are really using advanced sustainability practices. They're innovating and they're sharing that information with their peers. It really was a way for all of the different California sustainability programs to come together.
[00:04:21] We're all really about elevating sustainability. And so we came together with not only the Sustainable Wine Growing Alliance, which of course is this partnership with CAWG and with Wine Institute, but also with the Vineyard Team and Lodi Wine Grape Commission. Napa Valley Vintners and Napa Green, and also the Sonoma County Wine Growers, so that we could all be part of celebrating and shining a spotlight on these leaders.
[00:04:46] Craig Macmillan: I think that's one of the really great things about this. And my understanding is that you actually have representatives from different organizations that are part of the review committee for the applications and also part of the cross promotion. Is that right?
[00:04:57] Allison Jordan: That's right. Yeah, so all of those organizations are involved and participate in the judging panel. We also have experts from universities, the wine education field some representatives from retailers and, and some somellier have. Participated in the past. So we try to have that really well rounded group that can be reviewing the applications from wineries and vineyards around the state.
[00:05:20] Craig Macmillan: that's really fantastic that you have expertise from around different fields and different areas. I think that gives it a lot of weight and a lot of legitimacy. So let's get to the purpose of all this. So who are the 2024 green medal award winners and what are some of the sustainable practices that they employed that garnered them this recognition?
[00:05:39] Allison Jordan: Sure. I'll just run down the list. So every year we give four green medals and they are in the categories of leader. So sort of the overall. Embracing sustainability also in the areas of environment, community, and business. And this again helps us really share in lots of different ways what sustainability is all about.
[00:05:58] So for the Leader Award this year, which again is all around that excelling in all three areas of sustainability, being environmentally sound, socially equitable, economically viable. It goes to the Lang Twins family winery and vineyards. They're based in San Joaquin County, just north of Lodi, and have been very involved in sustainability, both in the Lodi region, but statewide for, for many, many years.
[00:06:22] Really, since the inception of our programs. And if you think back further, because it's a generational business they've been embracing sustainability since the early seventies. just some of the examples of things that they've done. They've done a lot around habitat restoration projects. I've actually had the chance to just go in and do a walking tour just a couple of weeks ago, and it's just impressive how they've really repaired that riparian habitat, working with local youth and providing hands on environmental stewardship education for them.
[00:06:53] But they also started off as a family of growers and built a state of the art winery. Just within the last decade or so and they really included a lot of energy efficient design and solar power technology. So just a really great example. thinking back some of the other past winners in the leader category are Treasury Americas, Wente Family Estates, O'Neill, Vintners and Distillers, and J. Lohr Vineyards and Wines. So some really great examples of leaders in our industry.
[00:07:25] The next category would be community. of course, this is all around what vineyards or wineries do to enhance relationships, not only with their employees, but also with the broader community and with their neighbors.
[00:07:39] And this year it goes to Cooper Garrod vineyards at Garrod farms, which is a beautiful vineyard and winery, and also a horse farm in the Santa Cruz mountains. really I've known. Doris and Bill for years, Bill was a former chair of the California Sustainable Wine Growing Alliance, and they just give their whole heart to their community.
[00:08:00] They have done things like pioneering the FireWise Community Initiative. They actively participate in benefits for their schools, for mental health. They participate in the Chambers of Commerce and the industry groups. And also to foundations. they really invite the community in so they can use their farm's hiking trails and participate in winemaker walks and all kinds of really fun ways to learn about sustainability.
[00:08:26] And just thinking back again on some of the past winners in this category, we had Cake Bread Cellars, McManus Family Vineyards, and Smith Family Wines. And there are two more. Do you want me to take a breath or do you want me to keep going?
[00:08:40] Craig Macmillan: no. Keep going. This is great. Yeah.
[00:08:42] Allison Jordan: All right. So the third category is the environment. Something that I think people think of a lot when they think about sustainability.
[00:08:50] there are those vineyards and wineries that are really maximizing environmental benefits. And this year it goes to Gloria Ferrer in the Sonoma region of Carneros. they use regenerative organic farming practice is something we're hearing a lot about. Regenerative is, is the new buzzword in the world of sustainability.
[00:09:06] they're introducing biodiverse cover crops implementing high intensity sheep grazing. They create biochar and really thinking a lot about how do you build healthy soils and minimize your overall environmental impact. They've also established wildlife habitat with things like hedgerows and pollinator friendly areas and nesting sites. So they're really attracting that wildlife into their property and fostering biodiversity.
[00:09:33] And I can think of some really great past winners too. Tobless Creek, Trefethen, Scheid Family Wines, and also Halter Ranch Vineyards.
[00:09:41] So again, some stellar examples of environmental stewardship.
[00:09:45] Craig Macmillan: Yeah. Very heady.
[00:09:46] Allison Jordan: yeah, exactly, exactly. And we have the Business Award as the final category. And this is given to the Vineyard or winery that best demonstrates smart business practices. So things like looking for those efficiencies and related cost savings and innovation.
[00:10:05] And this year's winner for that category is Vino Farms. They are a vineyard management company based in Lodi, but they farm all over the state and they've used all kinds of different advanced technology, for instance, for water use efficiency, they've used Tule towers and soil moisture probes and ceres imagery.
[00:10:27] And the idea is to really understand water needs to prevent overwatering and to make sure they have uniform water distribution. And, of course, this can lead to substantial cost savings in addition to saving water. They've also done things like releasing beneficial insects via drones. To reduce the need for pesticide applications.
[00:10:46] And of course, again, the associated costs with that. And then they've also done a lot to embrace renewable energy. So they transitioned all of their trucks and tractors to biofuel since 2010. So going way back They use solar panels in their vineyards to power ranch shops and also water pumps.
[00:11:06] And some of the other examples of this category winners are Niner Wine Estates, Jackson Family Wines and Monterey Pacific. So some really good examples of both vineyards and wineries that have done some amazing work that are really driving that innovation.
[00:11:23] Craig Macmillan: Did you say this is the 10th year? Is that right?
[00:11:25] Allison Jordan: It's right. It's the 10th year. So we've now had close to 40 recipients of the Green Medals. We've had a couple of that have won multiple years Tablas Creek being one of them, Trinchero Family Winery being one. So when you look at the full picture, it's probably around 36 different recipients of the award.
[00:11:43] And if you visit greenmedal. org, you can see all of the current and past winners and some video highlights of the winners. And just, it's a great way to learn really delve into what does sustainable wine growing mean on the ground.
[00:11:56] Craig Macmillan: Yeah, it's, it's another way of having that kind of farmer to farmer, winery to winery contact to see what people are doing and, and how they've made it work and kind of encourages people to try things for themselves.
[00:12:09] Allison Jordan: Exactly. Get some good ideas of things that you might want to talk to them about. And I think that's another key thing about wine growing. Virtually all of our green metal recipients, I feel like are leaders in that they're willing to share that information and participate in field days and workshops and all of the things that all of our organizations do to advance sustainability.
[00:12:28] And when you look at it, it's amazing. We're the fourth largest wine producing region in the world. And today we have 85 percent of California wine being made in a certified sustainable winery and 67 percent of the acreage is certified to one of the California programs. So it's really exciting to see that level of adoption.
[00:12:47] Craig Macmillan: Yeah, we've come a long way.
[00:12:49] Allison Jordan: We really have.
[00:12:50] Craig Macmillan: We really have. Thanks to the efforts of folks like you.
[00:12:53] Allison Jordan: It's been a pleasure to be working in this field for now over 20 years, which is hard to believe.
[00:12:57] Craig Macmillan: I know, I know. Is there one thing that you would tell growers regarding this topic in terms of either applying for awards or how to use what you can find from award winners?
[00:13:10] Allison Jordan: Yeah. So I feel like the awards is one example of how you really have to think of all of the costs and benefits of sustainable wine growing. And as you explore specific practices to make sure they make sense for your operation. One of the things that I think comes to those vineyards and wineries that are adopting sustainable wine growing is the ability to share their story and the positive public relations around it.
[00:13:35] And we can help amplify that through things like the Green Metal Awards. The green metal.org website has lots of great information about, again, the practices being used by the recipients. But also you can learn how to apply if you're a vintner or grower for the 2025 awards the applications will most likely open up around November.
[00:13:55] So keep an eye out then and they tend to be due in January. So We will be getting the word out in lots of different ways through the vineyard team and all of our partners and through the California Sustainable Wine Growing Alliance. But you can also just periodically check out greenmetal. org to see if there's any new information about it.
[00:14:14] Craig Macmillan: So we've got greenmiddle. org is a great resource. Where else can people find out more about you and your organization?
[00:14:20] Allison Jordan: Our organizational website is sustainablewinegrowing. org. We also have one for, basically for more our, our Interested consumers and retailers and other stakeholders. That's all around certification. And that's California sustainable wine.com. And then the last one I'll mention is, is again, just showing the breadth and depth of all of the different initiatives across the state.
[00:14:42] So in honor of 30 years of all of the different sustainable initiatives in the state, we put together a website called californiasustainablewinegrowing. org and it has a retrospective of some of the really key milestones. That all of our respective programs have done. So if you're looking for some of that history of how this idea and this approach has evolved in California, that's a really great place to look.
[00:15:09] Craig Macmillan: Cool. Well thanks so much for being on the podcast. This is really great. And I'm really happy that we can support some of these leaders and get some of these messages out there. I think it's really important and it's been the mission of all of these organizations. And so to be able to come together for something like this is really great.
[00:15:23] Allison Jordan: Yes. It's one of my favorite things of the year. So looking forward to celebrating the winners.
[00:15:28] Craig Macmillan: our guest today has been Allison Jordan. She's executive director of the California sustainable wine growing alliance, and we've been talking about the green metal awards here today. Please, by all means, check out the resources we've talked about and think about applying. So I worked for Niner Wine Esates, so we won the business category.
[00:15:45] And what we found as we went about it was, it was a great process internally, to list and think about all the things we've been doing. And what we realized was We were doing a lot of things in a variety of areas and you don't see that you're always focused on whatever the current project is, right?
[00:16:07] You're always focused on fixing whatever. And when we stopped and actually kind of meditated on it, it was like, wow, you know, there's a lot that we're doing and a lot that's going on. And then it also helped us identify areas where we thought, Hey, you know, maybe we haven't paid attention to this.
[00:16:17] Like maybe we should. And I just think that process, regardless of whether you're a winner or not is really valuable. It's a good exercise for people.
[00:16:25] Allison Jordan: Yeah, that's a great, great insight. And I do feel like, you know, certification is a great way to tell, to tell a story. your story, but to add credibility to what you're doing, but you still need those examples. And so taking the time to compile those and to really show what you're doing, what you're exceptional at I think is a really great exercise.
[00:16:44] So fantastic point, Craig.
[00:16:46] Craig Macmillan: All right. Thanks, Allison.
[00:16:47] Allison Jordan: Thanks.
[00:16:48] Beth Vukmanic: Thank you for listening. Today's podcast was brought to you by San Agro. Westbridge is now San Agro. When the opportunity came to expand their reach and improve the customer's bottom line, they took it. San Agro's commitment to deliver science based solutions for both sustainable crop health And nutrition remains the same.
[00:17:11] They offer a full line of plant nutrients, biopesticides, and specialty inputs. Visit san agro. com to learn more,
[00:17:20] make sure you check out the show notes for links to all of the 2024 green medal award winners to learn more about Alison and to apply for the 2025 green medal award. You could also listen in to sustainable wine growing podcast episodes. 206, the best newsletter you can send featuring Niner Wine Estates talking about their green medal award and 231 stacking regenerative practices to create a healthy vineyard with a member of the Langtwids family.
[00:17:49] If you liked the show, do us a big favor by sharing it with a friend, subscribing and leaving us a review. You can find all of the podcasts at vineyardteam. org slash podcast, and you can reach us at podcast at vineyardteam. org. Until next time, this is Sustainable Wine Growing with the Vineyard Team.
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[00:00:00] Beth Vukmanic: While most consumers say that environmental friendliness plays a significant role in how they make purchasing decisions. Brands, messaging about sustainability only reaches about half of global consumers. Welcome to marketing tip Monday with sip certified. We know customers are looking for wines labeled as sustainable. While our longer form episodes help you learn about the latest science and research for the wine industry.
[00:00:24] These twice monthly micro podcasts will help you share your dedication to sustainable wine growing.
[00:00:30] Your sustainable story can be shared across any of your communication channels, including social media, wine club, newsletters, tasting room signage, and so much more.
[00:00:39] Are you wondering what to tell your audience about in your next story? From cover crops to owl boxes and water collection, ponds to native landscaping. There are many sustainability topics. right outside of your window.
[00:00:51] At ancient peaks winery in Santa margarita, California. There is no shortage of natural. conversation fodder. Their sustainable story highlighting the value of habitat shows creative ways to support the native wildlife that lives around their vineyard.
[00:01:07] The Santa margarita ranch. Ava represents just one vineyard. Ancient peaks wineries estate, margarita vineyard. Which is home to an abundance of beloved wildlife.
[00:01:17] The team takes great care to respect and facilitate the presence of their winged and furry friends through the preservation of their habitat.
[00:01:25] Wildlife corridors are present through and around the vineyard to ensure animals have free and safe passage. Black bears, Bobcats, mountain lions, wild pigs turkeys, deer, and bald Eagles are among the many creatures. That you'll find.
[00:01:39] There's also aquatic life at the ranch. The team protects Creek setbacks and implements filter strips between the vineyard and waterways to keep the water healthy. With all of this life on the property, not all of it is beneficial to the health of the vineyard crop. To help keep pests at bay, the ranch attracts natural predators with bat boxes, Al boxes, and wrapped her purchase. They even invite a herd of goats to feast on their vegetation, acting as low impact herbicide alternative.
[00:02:05] They're affiliated margarita adventures is dedicated to nature and wildlife appreciation and education.
[00:02:11] The ranches natural list. Jackleen.
[00:02:14] offers a variety of guided wildlife tours. For guests, including nature, adventure tours, Eagle tours, forging tours, and photograph tours.
[00:02:24] Think about the habitat around your vineyard.
[00:02:27] How will you highlight preserving nature at your property?
[00:02:30] If you want more inspiration to help share your sustainable story, make sure you check out our newly updated online course. We've spent over 40 hours writing new sustainable stories for finding our training module and recording and editing video content.
[00:02:45] This simple yet powerful free tool will help you tell your own personal sustainable message. To get started. Just go to the show notes. Click on the title. Tell your sustainable story to sign up and start writing yours today. Until next time, this is sustainable winegrowing with the vineyard team.
Resources: *** Tell Your Sustainable Story Online Course *** Apply for SIP Certified Wine Marketing Tips eNewsletter Sustainable Story | Print Sustainable Story | Electronic What's your Sustainable Story? Vineyard Team Programs: Juan Nevarez Memorial Scholarship - Donate SIP Certified – Show your care for the people and planet Sustainable Ag Expo – The premiere winegrowing event of the year Sustainable Winegrowing On-Demand (Western SARE) – Learn at your own pace Vineyard Team – Become a Member -
Microbial communities vary widely from plant to plant, even from rootstock to rootstock! Philippe Rolshausen, Professor of Cooperative Extension for Subtropical Horticulture in the Department of Botany and Plant Sciences at the University of California Riverside studies the phytobiome. This includes all organisms associated with the vine including bacteria, fungi, insects, and animals. Learn the impact these communities have on your vineyard from young vine decline under extreme stress to the wine’s terrior.
Resources: 78: Biological Control for Grape Vine Trunk Diseases A Method to Detect and Quantify Eutypa lata and Diplodia seriata-Complex DNA in Grapevine Pruning Wounds Endophytic microbial assemblage in grapevine Grapevine pruning strategy affects trunk disease symptoms, wood pathobiome and mycobiome Philippe Rolshausen Phylogenomics of Plant-Associated Botryosphaeriaceae Species Rolshausen Lab Soil Health Playlist Temporal Dynamics of the Sap Microbiome of Grapevine Under High Pierce’s Disease Pressure Vineyard Team Programs: Juan Nevarez Memorial Scholarship - Donate SIP Certified – Show your care for the people and planet Sustainable Ag Expo – The premiere winegrowing event of the year Sustainable Winegrowing On-Demand (Western SARE) – Learn at your own pace Vineyard Team – Become a Member Get MoreSubscribe wherever you listen so you never miss an episode on the latest science and research with the Sustainable Winegrowing Podcast. Since 1994, Vineyard Team has been your resource for workshops and field demonstrations, research, and events dedicated to the stewardship of our natural resources.
Learn more at www.vineyardteam.org.
Transcript[00:02:07] Craig Macmillan: Our guest today is Philippe Roshausen. He is Professor of Cooperative Extension at University of California, Riverside. And today we're going to be talking about the soil microbiome. Thanks for being on the podcast, Philippe.
[00:02:19] Philippe Rolshausen: Thank you for having me.
[00:02:20] Craig Macmillan: Well, when we do these topics, like to start from the very basics. And then we can go very deep from there. What is your definition of the soil microbiome?
[00:02:31] Philippe Rolshausen: Well, a microbiome is the collection of microbes. The soil microbiome is the collection of microbes associated with the soil. I have to say we work on the soil microbiome, but we also work on the phytobiome, which is the collection of organisms. associated with the, the, vine, and that can be fungi, bacteria, viruses, even insects. So we are more interested in fungi and bacteria in my lab. And especially those that live inside the vine and how it's connected to the roots and the soil.
[00:03:12] Craig Macmillan: Yeah, I'm very interested in that. Just for our listeners, other aspects of the soil microbiome could include things like microarthropods,
uh, nematodes, etc. It's a very complex Complicated
ecosystem.
[00:03:26] Philippe Rolshausen: I and I only focus on one part of it.
[00:03:29] Craig Macmillan: The work that I've done with soil microbiome in a very primitive way. We just focused on total bacteria, total biomass, things like that.
You just mentioned this and this is a good jumping off point actually. Because plants are an active part of this ecosystem, you will find different soil microbiomes around different crops. What is the soil microbial community like around grapevines in particular?
[00:03:50] Philippe Rolshausen: Well compared to, to what is the question. Let's give you an example. I work on citrus and grapes in the same soil environment, you would see differences between a grapevine and the citrus plant just because of the property of the host. Within grapevine, you know. Depending on the variety or the rootstocks, I should say then you would also have different microbial communities associated with the rootstock.
And this is like a plant effect because plant recruits their microbes. So, so you have sort of a template of microbial or a core microbiome, which is you would find across a different rootstock or varieties of grapes or even plants. But then. Some are very variety specific or host specific, and so you would tend to see some varietal specificity and specific microbe associated with some of those rootstock operants.
[00:04:47] Craig Macmillan: That's news to me. That's fascinating.
there is some commonality, but you will find some differences just based on things like rootstock?
[00:04:56] Philippe Rolshausen: Yes.
[00:04:57] Craig Macmillan: Oh, that is interesting. We may come back to that. one of the things about your work that I was really intrigued by, which I was unaware of, is the different microorganisms that one might find inside the grapevine, and what roles they play in the functioning of the plant. I mean, I think most of familiar with Our gut microflora. Right, where we know that we have organisms inside us. We have organisms on our skin and all that. I didn't realize that was true for plants as well. Tell me more about that.
[00:05:26] Philippe Rolshausen: You can make the parallel between the roots and the gut, actually.
Because they have similar functions. Especially with respect to nutrient assimilation Defense against disease, for instance. Now, the gut is inside, the root is outside. Someone made the comment that the plant where there are guts on the outside, just because of that parallel that between the rhizosphere and the gut.
there is a connection between what's going on inside the plant and what's going on outside the plant. We are interested to understand what the organisms that live inside the plant. Where they're coming from. in terms of diversity the endosphere, which is the the region of the, the organism living inside the plant, the endosphere is not very diverse.
There's only a few of thousand fold less microbe capable of living inside the plant just because it's a more. Stringent environment I work on the xylem a lot and, you know, there's a negative pressure for instance, there are, there's not a lot of food available, for instance.
And so microbes have to adapt to those environments, right? And it's not every microbe is capable of doing that. there's only A certain type of microbe that can live inside them. we're interested in those because we work specifically on vascular disease of grapevines, so fungi, bacteria especially.
And we try to understand how those pathogens interact with the plant, but also really understand those pathogen within the, context of the microbial community and how those pathogen interact with the microbes living inside the plants. to go back to your question, it's like, where are those pathogen coming from?
How did they get there? How do they interact with the plant and how do they interact with the microbes? within those interaction, what would be the, the disease outcome in certain type of interaction.
[00:07:35] Craig Macmillan: So what we're talking about is we have these pathogenic organisms Which could be in the form of like grapevine trunk disease Things like that or Peirce's disease. In the case of bacteria and what you're getting at is it that there's other types and populations of microbes that may be antagonistic to the pathogen?
[00:07:56] Philippe Rolshausen: Yes. So that was our hypothesis. Traditionally, you know, microbiologists were looking for biological control agent against diseases and they were culturing those.
That was the traditional approach. So you take a plant tissue, You put it in the culture media and you see what's growing and then you test if those organism are able to inhibit the growth of your pathogen. That would be the traditional way of doing it. Now, with the metagenomics , the development of those technology, we're able to kind of look, at the entire community of those organisms living inside the plant and using those tools, we could actually select those that have some.
That might be antagonistic to certain pathogens. the beauty of this is that you can actually look at the entire community. When you look at a traditional microbial approach, you kind of zoom in on, to those that can grow in culture and those that can grow fast in culture and sort of overpower the other ones.
when you use those molecular approaches, you look at the entire community and you can And sort of a broader view of really what's going on and who does what. and so that's the approach that we've been doing to try to identify biological control agents or beneficial organism to plants and to grapes in particular.
what we do is we select plants with different phenotypes. So we will select. Plants that, you know, that range from very healthy to poor health. And we're able to build those sort of correlations with organisms that associate specifically with healthy plants and those that associate with sick plants.
and from that, once we have identified the organism, we can go back and try to culture it and to reintroduce him in the system to prove that Actually, they are beneficial in some capacity.
[00:09:52] Craig Macmillan: does this mean that I could have plant material, and one of those vines would be healthy and one would be weak and showing disease, but they both would have the pathogen, it's just that the other one has the microbial community to help fight it.
[00:10:07] Philippe Rolshausen: That's right.
[00:10:08] Craig Macmillan: Wow.
[00:10:09] Philippe Rolshausen: there's a environmental factor that comes into play as well. because abiotic stresses also so like, you know, drought or heat play a factor into the plant, weaken the plant in some capacity and will change the disease outcome and the interaction between the pathogen and the microbe.
There are more layers than, you know, the simple pathogen, microbe. plant interaction There's also the environment in which those components are part of that really plays a big factor.
[00:10:43] Craig Macmillan: So, are you finding or pursuing how those abiotic factors can be manipulated?
[00:10:50] Philippe Rolshausen: A little bit. I'm really interested in those aspects of, especially in the eras of climate change.
plants are going to be subjected to a lot more stress than they used to be. I think we need to understand how this is going to affect the, the microbiome at large and because I'm a pathologist, how this is going to affect disease outcome. we are starting to only scratch the surface of that.
I think a lot of people are as well. It's a lot more complicated when you work with. Woody perennial than when you work with an annual plant, because you have the approaches and the logistics are more challenging, I would say. drought is the number one just because it's been on the radar of every grower in California, but so we, you know, we are interested to see how those factors really affect the Have an effect on disease.
Yes.
[00:11:44] Craig Macmillan: Are you doing that in the laboratory?
[00:11:46] Philippe Rolshausen: Well, yes. You have to sort of work in more controlled conditions and sort of dissect it one stress at a time. so it is in more greenhouse conditions or gross chamber conditions where you can, semi controlled environment where you can really control heat or, you know, water or, and see how that affects the microbiome.
[00:12:07] Craig Macmillan: I think this is fascinating. can you tell me more about what that actually looks like, like how do you set it up? How are you controlling it? What kind of ranges are you using? I love the details.
[00:12:17] Philippe Rolshausen: So we've done experiments mostly with irrigation so far. And we are only starting to tie irrigation to microbiome, but we have done the.
How irrigation affects severity of disease and impact on the plant. this is pretty straightforward, you have plants that are fully irrigated that are not on the deficit irrigation, and then you calculate what a deficit irrigation like a 25 percent deficit irrigation look like, a 50 percent deficit irrigation look like, measuring, you know, how much water.
How much irrigation you put in on your plants, you inoculate your tree or vine with a pathogen, and you let it incubate for, you know, weeks, because you know, those are slow pathosystems, they take time, and you see how that affects for trunk disease in particular lesion of the wood necrotic lesion, for instance.
And then we look at factors on the plant. We measure biomass, for instance, of the roots, the shoots. We look at gas exchange, photosynthesis, and so on and so forth. going down to the microbiome, you know, we would be sampling the tissue, extracting the DNA, and then sequencing, you know, all the microbial community, bacterial and fungal, to see how those communities have changed over time in a well watered versus a deficit irrigated plants.
[00:13:49] Craig Macmillan: And is that quantitative analysis, or is it simply the complexity of the diversity of the microbiome
[00:13:56] Philippe Rolshausen: it's semi quantitative so let's say, you know, like you're looking at a presence of a specific taxa.
It's a relative abundance of the taxa in comparison to the others. So when you see an increase of the taxa. in your community, it's either because it does increase or because the other taxa within that community decreased. So it increases in, in relation to that. So it's not really an absolute measure of abundance.
It is a relative measure of abundance, but you could still use it and make some correlation with that.
[00:14:34] Craig Macmillan: Can you explain, metagenomics?
[00:14:37] Philippe Rolshausen: That's not my field. To be honest with you, but the principle is that you're using primers that are universal primers and that allow you to, so there are.
Meaning that you can sequence conserved region. So those primers are aligned with conserved region across several taxonomic groups. Okay, so fungi or bacteria. And then you sequence a length of nucleotide. In our case, it's about 200, 250 nucleotides in length. In between, and this is valuable between those two.
Primers, that region is valuable. And so you could start making you can do a micro real fingerprinting and identify which types are, are present, you know, but it's the community of organism. So it's like all the fungal communities or all the bacterial communities. So some primers are better than others for special taxonomy group.
So for instance. I work with Dario Cantu at UC Davis, CBT Controlled Neurology. Davis uses field of knowledge, and so he developed primers for group causing grapevine trunk diseases. And so it's mostly what's called the Ascomycota phyla. his primers are mostly focusing on this group of, fungi, but it doesn't give any information on The basidiomycota, which is another group, or the glomerulomycota, which is the mycorrhizae fungi.
if you wanted to get information about this group, you would need to get a different set of primers, right? so it's really up to primer that you're using that gets you the right information. and also the database that you're using that gives you the right information because sometimes the database are not curated or they're not accurate, and those are getting better as we're getting more and more knowledge about the taxonomy and, and the biology of those organisms.
we're able to make more accurate prediction because we're gaining more knowledge about those organisms. So for instance, there's a lot more information about bacteria than, They are about fungi just because there are not a lot of reference genome for fungi compared to bacteria. so it's a lot more difficult to predict. Sometimes for fungi than it is for bacteria.
[00:17:01] Craig Macmillan: But it sounds like that would be coming down the road.
[00:17:04] Philippe Rolshausen: Oh yeah, yeah, it's a matter of time. I mean, really, you know, this technology is going so fast, so quickly that, in five years from now, I can't even predict what it's going to look like,
[00:17:15] Craig Macmillan: This thought just occurred. your work is obviously, I don't want to say infancy, but it's, it's pretty early work. You know, we're, we're working with tools that are still in development, basically. at this point, would you say that there are certain conditions or practices or manipulations that a grower could use to promote the most beneficial endo, um, microbiome in their plants?
[00:17:40] Philippe Rolshausen: In principle, yes, and I believe that this is true. We just don't have the knowledge yet to make recommendations that are solid. There we go. So, when you apply something to your soil, you know, if you're a grower and you apply fertilizers, or this is going to, or even if you if you till your soil or it will have some impact on the soil microbiology.
That we know. How that reflects to what's going on inside the plant, we are, we are not there yet. We, we don't have that knowledge yet just because like I've said before, only a few of those organisms move inside the plant. There's always a a gap between you know, what's going on outside the plant and what's going on inside the plant.
The inside the plant it's a buffered environment that changes very slowly compared to the root of, a grapevine. what we've done is we've looked at the microbiome of vines that we planted in the field and look at the rhizosphere microbiome, or the, the The macro bill community associated with the root and the macro bill, community associated with the trunk, the graft union, and so forth.
And we see right after planting that the microbial communities associated with the root changes really quickly, whereas the the microbiome in the trunk are the graph union. changes very slowly. whatever growers do and cultural practices that they implement in the vineyard will have a limited effect inside the vine or it will take years for this to see the effect.
the rhizosphere microbiome drive a lot of, of biological function, you know, they, they, they fix nitrogen metabolize phosphorus detoxify compounds and so on and so forth. So there's a lot of, benefits of, using some cultural practices, beneficial practices and how they affect microbial communities associated with the roots.
[00:19:48] Craig Macmillan: We know that for like the pathogenic organisms, like the fungal ones, you know, they come in through wounds, whether that's a grafting or whether that's a pruning, we know that bacteria are introduced through things like piercing sucking insects. Like Leaf Hoppers and Peirce's disease. what is the, pathway for the bacteria and fungi that you find inside of a vine that are not the pathogens?
[00:20:10] Philippe Rolshausen: Well, you said it. the pathway is like from inside the vine, it's first of all inherited from the nursery. That's, that's the main pathway.
And then. Some of those organisms come from the soil, there's a fraction that comes from the soil and move throughout the plant systemically through the sap, the plant sap. So that's another pathway one of the major pathway. But again, that takes time. Right. And then, you have fewer introduction that comes through, you know, the plant natural openings, stomatas on the leaves, for instance.
Right. Or pruning wounds. Some organism when vines are pruned some organism common pruning wounds and are able to colonize down into the vascular system. That's another path. Or introduction through insects. And, you know, OSA is, you know, one of the best example of that being introduced with shop shooters. during feeding So, but I would say those, are minor introduction compared to what's already there when the vine is being planted and secondary to movement you know, sap movement throughout the plant, from the root to the upper part of the plant.
[00:21:29] Craig Macmillan: One thing that I saw mentioned is that these variations in The microbiome inside the plant may also have kind of a role in our concept of terroir in terms of how different areas have different characteristics. Is there, something to that idea?
[00:21:46] Philippe Rolshausen: the characteristic of wine region or the terroir is not only linked to the soil, the variety or the weather condition.
. It's also linked to the microbial communities associated with those vines. There has been a study that's very famous that was done 10 years ago at UC Davis that showed that. But it's mostly true for organisms that live on the plant surfaces the surface of the berries or the surface of the leaves.
It is not so true for organisms that live Inside the vasculature of the vine, just because of what we've talked about, just because it takes time for those communities to change over time. really those the microbial composition of the trunk is, from what we understand today, mostly inherited from what's coming from the nurseries.
you know, nurseries have a huge impact in shaping. the microbial communities of the trunk and the vines and you know, can you talk about terroir when it comes to the endosphere of the vine? I don't think so. I think it's, it's a debatable question. I think it's mostly true on epiphytic organism, organism that live on the vine surface just because they are more subject to the environment. Whereas it's not so true for trunk organisms,
[00:23:11] Craig Macmillan: , Even though we've been talking about the endophytic side, what's some of the things that the other parts do you were just talking about, we have a different community in the environment that's on the surface of the plant and that, that has a role in, you know, differences between regions in terroir. What impact are those kinds of organisms having on the physiology of the vine that contributes to those differences?
[00:23:35] Philippe Rolshausen: Well, that I don't know because, you know, that's not the field I've studied. But they, could influence the fermentation process, but I'm more interested in the one that live inside.
Do they have an impact on the wine quality itself, perhaps, you know, that's a question we're interested in. they have an impact on disease. We know that much because they, they affect disease outcome and we've shown that.
The question also, I think, from the standpoint of A grape grower or a winemaker is like, well, do they also affect winemaking?
we found some bacterium in the sap of grape vines that are present during the fermentation process. So lactobacillus, for instance we found those in the sap of grapes and some bacteria that also that spoil the wine fermentation process will also. Found them in the sap. So the question is like, are those, are those coming from the soil?
You know, where are they coming from? We find them in the sap and then can they go inside? Can they be moved to the berry of the grapes and then participate in the fermentation process later on? We don't know the answer to that question. The only thing we know so far is that we can detect them inside the plant stem.
And so. What is the impact? That's the question mark, but those are really relevant questions questions we're interested in because, if you can connect the root system to the cluster, and then if you can influence the root system or the microbial community of the root system, then perhaps you can influence the communities living in the cluster and then, you know, Later on, influence your fermentation process.
So that's the idea behind it. It will take time to decipher those questions.
[00:25:27] Craig Macmillan: Coming back to the pathology side. we have testing programs for virus in the nursery system. And we have the ability to test for fungal diseases, of course.
Do you see a role for testing for bacteria and fungi other than the pathogens at the nursery stage?
[00:25:48] Philippe Rolshausen: I don't think it makes sense. So we've been working with nurseries for several years now. And we are looking for where diseases are coming from prior to vineyard establishment. there's no certified program for fungal diseases and some bacterial disease like Crown gall.
there is a fraction of those pathogen that is coming from the nurseries. That's a fact and this is true for California, but this is true for everywhere else in the world. So if you get any. any vines from a nursery, you are going to find fungi causing grapevine trunk disease. And the reason is that there are over a hundred taxa of fungi causing grapevine trunk disease you will likely find one of them and not only that, but they are able to live on a different environment. And so they can live in soil, they can live in water, they can live in plant debris for some of them. And so you cannot get rid of them. I think that growers have to have the mindset that you are not going to be able to have plants free of pathogens causing fungal, grapevine, and trunk disease.
That's just not possible. Viruses, you can get rid of them and there is a certified program that works for that. This program would not work for fungi. It's just not realistic. Right. It would be too costly to do it. Right. Right. Right. Right. The question is like, can you live with it, right? Do pathogen causing grapevine trunk disease will cause the vine to die?
If that were the case, you would have no grape production in California because virtually all the vines are infected with one fungus causing grapevine trunk disease. that's not the case. It happens, it's called young vine decline, you know, when sometimes growers plant their vine. And the vine dies within five years.
But this is because what we understand now is that it's related to the stress factor that I was talking about earlier. there is something going on with the environmental stress that caused the vine to decline after five years. what we've done is to monitor the microbiome and the vine, like I've told before, following planting.
And we do capture those pathogen from the nursery to the vineyard. And they are evolving in the vineyard just and we can detect them. But under no stress conditions the vines are doing just fine. So every year a vine will lay out new wood, right? It will grow out some wood. The trunk gets bigger and bigger.
the fight between the trunk disease pathogen and the vine is if the vine can grow wood faster than it loses some to trunk disease, then it's fine, you know, it will be able to survive. Plants and grapes are able to compartmentalize the infection. They lay out walls to compartmentalize infection, and if they do that successfully, you know, Then they will survive now when you have a stress factor that comes into play and here you have to Go back and define well define stress this is where we go back and go back to your question about what stress are we talking about?
Heat a drought I think overcropping can be one of them also, when growers take tend to push the vine early on after the establishment to get into production quickly after two years. I view this as a stress factor, so this will influence the microbiome of the vine, living of the microbiome living inside the vine, and as a result, it will influence disease outcome.
[00:29:34] Craig Macmillan: I will not look at grapevines the same way. , is there one thing, one takeaway from this conversation that you'd like growers to hear
[00:29:44] Philippe Rolshausen: what we're trying to do is to identify cultural practices that are beneficial to production.
I think you, you have to look at it from a probiotic or prebiotic. Standpoint, just like we do for humans, you know. when you look at the prebiotics, those are similar to the cultural practices that you implement in vineyards to support the presence of beneficial organisms. that can be, you know, adding compost to your soil or cover cropping because they provide some benefits to the microbes living in the soil, and as a result, the microbe associated with the vine.
that's one of them. The probiotic is the addition of single microbes to the system identify which one of those probiotics using the metagenomics approach. And we've made some some stride in, in, in that research, we've identified several organisms that are beneficial to the plant and that are antagonistic to some of the disease.
So for instance Pierce's disease we've identified several organism living inside the vines that are antagonistic to PD. And today we are testing those organism in field trials at UC Davis. Because we've demonstrated that they, they work on the greenhouse condition. And now we moved on to field trials.
And when we inoculate those beneficial organisms to, or those probiotics to vine, they are able to stimulate the vine health in some capacity, or are being antagonistic to the pathogen in some capacity. And the vines are able to sustain the disease. So, the takeaway message from that is that we are making progress, you know, understanding what those probiotics and prebiotics are for viticulture.
[00:31:39] Craig Macmillan: That is great. and I'm really happy, That you're doing this work. It takes time Oh yeah, It takes time. Absolutely, that's, and that's, part of what we do here is we, bring people kind of what the future is looking like and what's possible because if you understand it, then when it does come along, The learning curve is already hopefully down the road a little ways. doing your homework, basically. thank you in your lab. This is really exciting. interesting stuff. Where can people find out more about you?
[00:32:09] Philippe Rolshausen: Well, they can go to the University of California, Riverside Botanical and Plant Sciences website. I'm a faculty member, so they will find me there.
I have also my personal website. Rolshausen. Slash lab. com. The problem is like the spelling of my name, right? It's not easy to do.
[00:32:27] Craig Macmillan: We'll have a link to that show page plus A a number of your recent publications.
[00:32:33] Philippe Rolshausen: Yeah, we have several publications about what we've talked about today.
We have just had one released about how pruning practices affect also the microbiome and, and disease. So. You know, this is an active area of research. I'm not the only one doing this. Like I've said, I've collaborated with Dario Cantu at UC Davis. And I think he should be mentioned because he's doing some excellent work.
And we are a great team working together. As a cooperative extension specialist, I collaborate with others. I collaborate with other faculty. And this is a collaborative work that I'm talking about. I'm not the only one,
[00:33:11] Craig Macmillan: there's a network. want to thank our guest, Philippe rolshausen. He is professor of cooperative extension with the university of California riverside and doing some very exciting work. And thanks for being on the podcast, Philippe.
[00:33:24] Philippe Rolshausen: Well, that was great. Thank you for having me.
Nearly perfect transcription by Descript
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[00:00:00] Beth Vukmanic: For your wine club members. Is there anything more exciting than delivery day? Unboxing the latest assortment, stir sweet memories of their last visit to the winery and welcomes them to once again, connect with your community.
[00:00:13] Welcome to marketing tip Monday with sip certified. We know customers are looking for wines labeled as sustainable. While, our longer form episodes help you learn about the latest science and research for the wine industry. These twice monthly micro podcasts will help you share your dedication to sustainable. Winegrowing.
[00:00:32] Your wine club newsletter prepares your customer for the delights ahead, but does it invite them to relish in the social and environmental virtues of their loyalty?
[00:00:42] Next time you send out a newsletter, include a sustainability tidbit. So your brands enthusiasts know that they're sipping sustainably.
[00:00:50] You can start by including a brief description of the sustainable practices at your property. For SIP certified brands, we talk about the seven values. Which includes social responsibility, wiper management, safe, pest management. Energy efficiency, habitat business, and always evolving.
[00:01:08] A great way to help your customers really see what you're doing to be sustainable is to share your sustainable story.
[00:01:15] You can talk about attracting barn owls and releasing beneficial insects to help manage pests naturally.
[00:01:22] You can share pictures of the native plants in your cover crop and explain how they benefit pollinators and help improve soil health.
[00:01:28] Or you could talk about how you treat winery, process water. So that it can be reused to irrigate the landscape or the vineyard.
[00:01:36] Your customers will love learning how your brand conserves and protects natural resources.
Tell Your Sustainable Story[00:01:42] If you need more ideas, make sure you check out our newly updated course. We spent over 40 hours writing new sustainable stories, refining our training module and recording and editing video content to bring you an updated online course.
[00:01:58] The simple yet powerful free tool will help you tell your own personal sustainable message. Go to the show notes, click on the title. Tell your sustainable story to sign up and start writing yours today.
Until next time, this is Sustainable Winegrowing with the Vineyard Team.
Resources: *** Tell Your Sustainable Story Online Course *** Apply for SIP Certified Wine Marketing Tips eNewsletter Sustainable Story | Print Sustainable Story | Electronic What's your Sustainable Story? Vineyard Team Programs: Juan Nevarez Memorial Scholarship - Donate SIP Certified – Show your care for the people and planet Sustainable Ag Expo – The premiere winegrowing event of the year Sustainable Winegrowing On-Demand (Western SARE) – Learn at your own pace Vineyard Team – Become a Member -
For thousands of years, wildfires have produced a byproduct known to improve soil and plant health - biochar. Today, researchers like Kelpie Wilson of Wilson Biochar Associates, Consulting and Manufacturing are learning how to use this form of charcoal for carbon sequestration. Kelpie explains the different stages of combustion, what types of material to include in your burn pile, incorporating biochar into compost, how to use biochar to amend alkaline or acetic soils, and an easy way to remove vineyard wires from your pile.
Resources: 56: Conservation Burning and Biochar 106: What? Bury Charcoal in the Vineyard? 167: Use Biochar to Combat Climate Change 215: Biochar Production on a Commercial Scale A Case of Biochar Use in Vineyards – Doug Beck A magnifying glass on biochar strategy: long-term effects on the soil biota of a Tuscan vineyard Biochar Use in Viticulture (US Biochar Initiative webinar link) Deep incorporation of organic amendments into soils of a ‘Calardis Musqué’ vineyard: effects on greenhouse gas emissions, vine vigor, and grape quality Long-Term Application of Biochar Mitigates Negative Plant–Soil Feedback by Shaping Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Fungi and Fungal Pathogens Ring of Fire Biochar Kiln The Biochar Handbook: A Practical Guide to Making and Using Bioactivated Charcoal Vineyard Field Trial with Biochar and Compost_ 5th Harvest Report Wilson Biochar Vineyard Team Programs: Juan Nevarez Memorial Scholarship - Donate SIP Certified – Show your care for the people and planet Sustainable Ag Expo – The premiere winegrowing event of the year Sustainable Winegrowing On-Demand (Western SARE) – Learn at your own pace Vineyard Team – Become a Member Get MoreSubscribe wherever you listen so you never miss an episode on the latest science and research with the Sustainable Winegrowing Podcast. Since 1994, Vineyard Team has been your resource for workshops and field demonstrations, research, and events dedicated to the stewardship of our natural resources.
Learn more at www.vineyardteam.org.
Transcript[00:00:00] Beth Vukmanic: For thousands of years, wildfires have produced a by-product known to improve soil and plant health. This is known as bio char. Welcome to sustainable. Winegrowing with the vineyard team where we bring you the latest in science and research for the wine industry. I'm Beth organic executive director. And since 1994 vineyard team has brought you the latest science-based practices, experts, growers, and wine industry tools through both in-field and online education, so that you can grow your business.
Please raise a glass with us as we cheers to 30 years. In today's podcast Craig Macmillan, critical resource manager at Niner wine estates with long time SIP certified vineyard and the first ever SIP certified winery. He speaks with Kelpie Wilson of Wilson, biochar associates consulting in manufacturing.
Kelpie explains the different stages of combustion.
What types of material to include in your burn pile? Incorporating bio char into compost. How to use bio char to amend alkaline or acidic soils and an easy way to remove vineyard wires from your pile.
If you love this topic, then you won't want to miss Josiah Hunt's presentation. Practical applications of pyrogenic, organic material, AKA biochar in vineyards. He shares his expertise at the sustainable ag expo taking place November 12th or 13th, 2024 in San Luis Obispo, California. joy, the perfect blend of in-person and online learning. Speak directly with national experts.
Earn over 20 hours of continuing education and explore sustainable ag vendors. As a listener to this show, you can take $50 off of your ticket when you use code podcast 24 at checkout. Get yours [email protected]. Now let's listen in.
[00:02:00] Craig Macmillan: Our guest, today is Kelpie Wilson. She's the owner of Wilson Biochar Associates, consulting and manufacturing. And as you may have guessed today, we're going to talk about biochar. Welcome to the podcast, Kelpie.
[00:02:08] Kelpie Wilson: Thanks. Thanks for having me.
[00:02:11] Craig Macmillan: What exactly is biochar?
[00:02:13] Kelpie Wilson: Biochar is just charcoal, but it's special charcoal that, uh, you can use in soil or for purposes of carbon sequestration. That's the official definition from the International Biochar Initiative.
[00:02:27] Craig Macmillan: And what does biochar do for us in the vineyard?
[00:02:30] Kelpie Wilson: Well, it sequesters carbon, so it's a very stable form of carbon. Uh, Carbon comes in a lot of different forms. I mean, we're all made of carbon, and, you know, carbon can be a diamond, which is really stable, or it can be in a sugar, which, uh, you um, oxidized into CO2 pretty quickly. So uh, in is very, in a very stable form um, it's called aromatic carbon, so it's fused carbon rings.
which are the basis of all organic chemistry. biochar is. It's carbon. The thing about biochar and charcoal is that charcoal can have, you know, widely ranging different properties depending on how you make it and what it's made from. And I should add also that uh, in the definition of biochar, For use in soil or for use in carbon sequestration, it needs to be made from organic you know, that is clean.
So there are some environmental kind of limits around it that ensure that it's, it's really contributing to the carbon cycle in a positive way and that we're not making Materials that have, you know, toxics in them that could hurt soil.
[00:03:41] Craig Macmillan: So we're introducing carbon in a fairly stable people have told me that the carbon that you put into the soil in the form of biochar could be there for thousands of years, but it's obviously available somehow, or it's involved in the soil microbiome somehow, or it's involved in nutrient cycling somehow.
What are some of the properties that contribute to that soil health component,
[00:04:00] Kelpie Wilson: Well, There's there's quite a few. The interesting thing about biochar is that it's naturally present in soils in many, many parts of the world because of fire, from vegetation fires, forest fires, it's it's supposed to be there in many cases. Uh, Especially here in the, in the in the west coast where we uh, natural fire regime in the forest.
And if you look at the most productive soils in the world, for instance, the mollisols in Iowa or the um, in the Eurasian steppe, they have large amounts of biochar Um, In the case of the steppes and the plains, that's because of prairie fires. So you have these tall, tall grasses that would periodically burn off very regularly, like every 10 years or so, and the top would burn off in a flame, and that heat would radiate you know, kind of just above the root zone, the grasses are bunched up really thick, and some air is excluded, so they wouldn't burn all the way to ash, but the heat would turn it to char, the flame would move on, and you'd be left with char, and so this char builds up over years and centuries, and, you know, hundreds of centuries to make this a very black soil and then there are other places around the world historically going back thousands of years where it was deliberately to add to soil.
So those are the terra preta soils in the Amazon naturally normally didn't have a lot of fires. And look, also can look at charcoal middens around ancient villages and even city states where people would dump their manure and their, you know, their hue manure, their night soil, and they would always deodorize it with charcoal and ash, and you find very fertile black soils in those places.
So, it's not a new thing um, but we just kind of recently rediscovered So, as far as what it does in soil, you know, it doesn't break down. Like, you know, you asked, well, then how does it feed the It it sets the table. So It's the stable carbon with these fused carbon rings. It doesn't break down easily.
And we'll also have the mineral ash. from the vegetation that burned. And so that's food. And then it also needs the carbs and the protein. So, and that comes from all the fertilizer that you add to it. So it basically sets the table for soil life because microbes like to sit down when they
eat. And so you have all these little surfaces.
In the charcoal, it's very, very porous. You know, think of activated carbon. People know that activated carbon is used for filtration. It's got all these pores. And so, in that way, it's kind of like a sponge. It can hold air and soil, which is beneficial. But also, there's the surface area. So, each of those tiny pores has a surface around it.
And when you add up all the surface area, and this is kind of mind boggling, It's But you take a teaspoon of, of or, you know, that's got a lot of surface area or an activated carbon and it can have a football field's worth of surface area all inside It's, you know, it's, it's, it's amazing to think about, but all those surfaces are where the microbes can sit down and attach themselves.
And if we, if we have added fertilizer as well, there are nutrients and water. Attached to those surfaces by electrostatic attraction. So the microbes just can hang out there and, and it's all there for them. So that's how biochar promotes um, the soil food web by, uh, promoting the microbes. And then the their mycelia in there to, you know, get it's a foundation of good soil.
[00:07:42] Craig Macmillan: And you were talking about the fertilizer part. Is that one of the reasons why it's a good idea or a common practice to mix biochar with compost and spread it in that form?
[00:07:50] Kelpie Wilson: Yes, but I would not just mix it with compost if I have any choice at all. I would put it in the beginning of the composting That's where you're going to get the most benefit know, it just takes time for all these things to come And so If you start it from the beginning, not only do you get the nutrients and the biology in there right you're um, having um, beneficial impact on your composting So, You'll have fewer greenhouse gas uh, the compost will get hotter quicker uh, and you know, the char will absorb any kind of nasty stuff that's in there, reduce odors, etc. it's really, The thing about biochar and to make it really work for you in a, in a farm um, is to get every, Benefit you can out of it.
And there's a whole cascade of benefits that come with biochar.
[00:08:40] Craig Macmillan: we can talk about that some more, but let's get to some practical things. Let's say I'm interested in this. I've been hearing about it. I'm excited about it. I want to try this out. How can I make some high quality biochar with the least amount of emissions and the highest biochar production on my farm?
[00:08:57] Kelpie Wilson: Great So I've been working on this for quite a while. When I first heard about biochar, it was, I think, 2007, and it was the terra preta soils that we were all hearing about. I immediately got involved in it. I went to work for the International Biochar you know, was in close touch with people all around the world.
that we're trying to find ways to start making and using biochar, and a lot of the first people to actually do it were people who uh, you know, making little cook stoves or just making biochar in burn piles, and I saw that myself because I live in the woods here in Oregon, and I'd go out to where they did burn piles to, you know, We had a lot of extra vegetation that had to be thinned to protect from wildfire.
And I'd go to these burn piles and I'd find little chunks of charcoal left in them. And so we started making, doing experiments to see if we could optimize that. And we figured out make, take a burn pile and light it from the top. So it burned from the top down, and that would burn up a lot of the smoke so it was cleaner, and also leave us with a little pile of glowing coals at the end.
And anybody who's made a campfire has seen this. You have that pile of glowing coals, and if you just walk away and leave it, it'll all go to ash. But if you just simply put it out with water, hey, you've got biochar. So that's the way to start, and you can can do it in your a, with a kettle grill.
You know, just a little container that will improve the biochar recovery because if you cut off the air that comes in from and the sides of your you, you will just burn less of it to And again, you just put it out with water. So then I started making containers to improve the efficiency.
compared to making biochar in an open burn pile, if you put it in a container, You can make three or four times as much so, I've been working with little containers ever those, We call those flame cap kilns. Because the idea of how they work is you put your, make your burn pile in a container.
It's cutting off air from the bottom and the sides. So all the air comes from the And as it burns down, you keep adding more. And every time you add more material, it flames up. And the char that you've already formed on the bottom is protected from air by the container. And it's protected from air from the top because all the air that comes in is used in the flame of the currently burning material.
And so what you've already made is, is protected from oxygen. So you can build up a huge pile of char in a container, and you're only limited by the size of your container, really.
[00:11:34] Craig Macmillan: So the practice is put your feedstock in a container something that cuts off the bottom the sides from the air Light it from the top with kindling or something I would assume something lighter weight and then as that process goes and you can see the material come back Well, is it truly combustion if there's not a lot of oxygen?
[00:11:51] Kelpie Wilson: Well, uh, I call it combustus interruptus. So basically it is combustion, but combustion happens in stages. Okay. myths combustion. One is um, wood wood burns, wood does not burn. Wood gas burns in a And you can see this if you look at your charcoal grill, you see, there's not a flame.
Because the gas has already been mostly, you know, burned out of it. And so it just glows. So there's different stages of combustion. The first one is dehydration. When you heat a stick of um, water's going to come off of it, because water doesn't burn. And then the gases come out, and those are, methane, carbon burnable, burnable gases, and those make the flame.
And then when the flame goes out, you know, you just, that glowing coal stage. So it's, it's really staged combustion, and you're just interrupting and saving the char.
[00:12:49] Craig Macmillan: If I understand you correctly by putting more material on the top I'm continuing that process. The stuff on this top is heating up. You're getting that, flame cap. So you described it. And I can just keep layering on until my container's full. Basically.
[00:13:04] Kelpie Wilson: Yep, that's how we do
[00:13:06] Craig Macmillan: I want to come back to the kiln idea, but first, what are the, what are good feedstocks to make biochar from? What are feedstocks that are not good for making biochar? Right. Right.
Uh
[00:13:19] Kelpie Wilson: Good feedstocks are dry.
You don't want a lot of wet stuff, because you use a lot of energy burning the wet. , Good feedstocks are also appropriately sized. So grapevines, for instance, are good because they're not really big. Even the trunk of a vine is not really big. And so if you try to put a big log in your container on your fire, you use so much energy to get the heat into the center of the log.
So it's a progressive thing, right? You're charring the outside, and the heat's moving in, it's charring and charring and charring. But meanwhile, the outside of your char is starting to burn to ash. So it's not very efficient to try and char a big log. The kind of limit depends a lot on the fuel moisture.
In Utah, we're We have really dry wood. People are putting six and eight inch diameter logs in a kiln and doing fine. In Oregon, I kind of keep it to four inches, usually. But you know, we could do bigger stuff. It's just not quite as efficient. So dry less than 25 percent moisture is ideal. We can do wetter stuff, and we often do because we're here in the middle of winter trying to get burn piles taken care of. So we go ahead and do it, and there's some techniques for optimizing how you do that, how you load it. But dry, less than 25%. and not too big, but also not too small. I've really tried hard to biochar hemp stalks, for instance, which are abundant around here, and they're just a little too small.
if they're dry, they do pretty well, but you have to really make sure you don't pack them in too tightly because, small, small things like straw, and crop waste like that, they will pack and cut off the airflow and you'll get smoke.
[00:15:07] Craig Macmillan: Oh,
okay.
[00:15:08] Kelpie Wilson: That's the main issue is you get smoke.
And then as far as what species, the main difference between different species of wood, for instance, is density.
And because we're making biochar in a flame, we're making it at a very high temperature. So it's, as long as we're not smoldering it, As long as we have the flame present, we know we're making it at a high enough temperature to burn out most of the volatiles. Know, some species like eucalyptus or walnut might have chemicals in them that are allelopathic, I think is the term.
And if you add a lot of that to soil, you could have problems. But as long as we're making it at high temperature, we burn most of that out.
[00:15:50] Craig Macmillan: Got it. So we want things that are dry. We want things that are woody, that are relatively high in concentration. Things like grasses are probably not going to work as well or work terribly well. It sounds like you want chunks basically, you know, something about the size of your forearm or a little bit bigger chunk would be a really
great, size.
[00:16:09] Kelpie Wilson: that's a great way to look at it. I like the physical measurements. You know, I was telling woofers here the other day about how to, make biochar compost. And so we're doing it in layers. And I just said, think about Parmesan cheese. When you add the biochar, if you really like Parmesan on your pizza, just add the biochar like that.
So those kinds of physical measurements are really helpful for people when they're learning how to use biochar.
[00:16:33] Craig Macmillan: and returning to that topic you recommend putting biochar in your composting windrows at the beginning as part of the whole process.
[00:16:41] Kelpie Wilson: Yes.
The very beginning when I think about a vineyard, especially one where you're actually making the wine know, you're pressing the grapes and you have the is it called
pomace? I think the grape skins that's easily degradable stuff. It's hard to, compost just on its own because it doesn't have much carbon, but if you add biochar to that, you can make a beautiful compost.
And then great for reducing on farm inputs. contributing to the circular economy. And that's always how I recommend people use biochar if possible, is find whatever other organic waste streams are there, whether it's grass clippings, grape pomace, leaves, anything else, manure that you might have, mix it right in there.
[00:17:27] Craig Macmillan: Makes tons of sense. Okay. Let's get down to the nitty gritty here. We've touched on kilns as a way of getting the highest production. Tell me about the Ring of Fire Kiln system the concept in general. And then what might, what might be a biochar production day like?
[00:17:42] Kelpie Wilson: The Ring of Fire kiln is my latest, greatest design. Just bin kilns, but they were heavy. So They were, weighing a lot, and you had to, move them around, and very hard for one person. So I came up with this modular design of panels. And so you can hook them together.
They're four feet long and 40 inches tall, and they have a bracket that hooks them all together, and you can make a kiln any size you want. with that. I mean, not too big, but usually we make kilns that are between six feet and 12 feet in diameter. And so that can accommodate the piles you already have, for instance.
And then the other innovation with that kiln is it has a heat shield. And that's really important for two reasons. One is it holds more heat in the kiln so you get more production. It's more efficient. But the other one is that it protects the worker. Because when you are around a giant , flaming pile, you know, you can really get fried just from the radiant heat.
You know, you're not burning up, but you, the radiant heat, I would come away from some of my sessions with very red skin and very dehydrated. And so we really think a lot about the workers who are doing this. Because it's mostly hand labor, although we can also load the bigger kilns with, machinery. that's the Ring of Fire Kiln. It's also very, very clean, and there's a gap between the heat shield and the inner ring that allows, um, air to come through, and then so you have preheated air that's going in from the top into the kiln. And that also helps a lot with, uh, Reducing the smoke. And I have lots of pictures and videos showing the smoke being sucked into the kiln from the top.
It's really cool to see these loops of smoke kind of coming up and then being sucked back down into the kiln. Those are the advantages of the ring of fire kiln in addition to the fact that it's modular. One person can take it apart and move it one panel at a time. The panels only weigh less than 40 pounds and set it up somewhere else.
That's, that's the other advantage of the ring of fire kiln. So a typical workday, and I'm going to quote some numbers from my colleague Eric Meyer, who has Napa char, and he's done some incredible work in vineyards in the last couple years. Here's what he says He can make up to 12 cubic yards of biochar per kiln per day, which is two bone dry tons.
And that is equivalent to two to three acres of pulled mines. he'll do this usually with one helper. Sometimes he'll have a, a mini excavator that he uses to load it, but a lot of times he's just doing it, you know, as hand labor. And so that's a ;lot of biochar, two tons of biochar in one day. He'll start by arriving at the site, setting up his kiln, and then just hand loading the biochar initially, fill it full, light it on top.
There's a little break where you let it burn down till you start seeing glowing coals at the bottom and, some ash on the top. And then you just load it one layer at a time. And the loading rate is really critical. If you overload, you get smoke and you'll end up maybe even with unburned pieces in the bottom because the flame moves up in the kiln as you add more material and the bottom starts cooling off.
You don't want to leave any big pieces at the bottom. We load small pieces initially. And if you have bigger pieces, you would load them kind of toward the end or in the middle. And then when it's all full of biochar, or you're just done for the day because you're tired, you get some water out and you spray the kiln down with water just to cool it.
Then you open up the panels, and rake it out, and you spray it with water and rake it at the same time. So you end up with a big, big patch of biochar on the ground.
[00:21:29] Craig Macmillan: Perfect. Then you take that to your composting spot and away you go. .
[00:21:32] Kelpie Wilson: another piece about making biochar from vineyards, especially vineyard removals, is that a lot of times there's wire, trellis wire, in it. And you could have a big pile and you could build a kiln around the pile because you're not untangling that pile, right, with all the wire in it.
And then at the end, uh, you know, you pick the wire out of the char. You can use a magnet.
[00:21:52] Craig Macmillan: That's cool. What are some things that we should be concerned about not doing? If we are newbies to biochar production.
[00:22:00] Kelpie Wilson: Yeah, that's a really good question too. So, you need to know a little bit about your biochar. If you have a lot of ash in it, it can be alkaline. So if you have an alkaline soil, and you have alkaline biochar, you need to think about how you're going to apply it and maybe, usually composting will take care of any pH issue.
If you have an acidic soil, you might want to just add it directly. You know, take the most advantage you can get of that liming ability. You also don't want to add too much at one time, especially without composting it first, because it can, , lock up nutrients for a short time. Most likely you're not gonna have too much biochar for a, for a big field. Um, It's great to be able to do it a little bit every year. That's the best way to incorporate it.
[00:22:47] Craig Macmillan: Oh, and that's another question. I've seen different strategies here. Some folks believe that it has to be incorporated into the soil. Other folks say, no, that's good, but you can go ahead and spread it at the surface and you'll still get some benefits. Is that true?
[00:22:58] Kelpie Wilson: Well, it's going to depend a lot on what you're trying to grow. So the vineyard trials that I've seen using biochar, a lot of times they're putting it in at planting and they're putting it in deep in the root zone. That seems like a good idea to me. One thing I'll say is when I look at the literature, I read a lot of the biochar research literature.
There's some really interesting new material out about replant disease. So if you're replanting in a vineyard, you know, in an old vineyard, new vines. The soil can harbor pathogens that the older vines were able to resist, but the new vines have a hard time with. And biochar has a lot of benefits for disease resistance, just because it promotes a lot of microbial diversity, so you don't get the dominance with some of the pathogenic fungi and other organisms.
So, you know, adding it, deep You know, when you're doing the replanting, replacing a vineyard is probably the most beneficial way, to add biochar. But if you already have a vineyard and you're using cover cropping, for instance, it'll go really well with a legume cover crop like clover and you don't even need to compost it because clover and legumes fix their own nitrogen and And biochar is especially wonderful with legume crops because it promotes the nitrogen fixing bacteria. If I just had a couple bags of biochar and I wanted to use it right away, and I was, planting a cover crop, I'd just use it in the cover crop. I think vines are like any other plant, where they have roots that come up close to the surface, they can get benefit from surface applied biochar as well.
[00:24:39] Craig Macmillan: So if I'm following this idea, so from a cover cropping standpoint, what am I going to do is broadcast it and then plant my cover crop. That'd be one way of building the health of the whole floor, which is a really good idea. What about banding? It's very popular to band compost right into the vine row.
If I have compost that's got biochar in it, will I get those benefits as well?
[00:24:59] Kelpie Wilson: I would totally think so. The other thing about biochar is that it holds water. So, you know, in, droughty areas that would be helpful to,
[00:25:08] Craig Macmillan: If there was one thing, just one piece of advice that you had for folks, Who are interested in starting to produce biochar and use biochar. Let's talk about it one for production and one thing for use. What would that be? What would that two part advice be?
[00:25:25] Kelpie Wilson: first of all, uh, get one of my ring of fire biochar kilns. It's a, you know, it's really economic. And second of all, buy my book, the biochar handbook, because I have all kinds of information in there about composting, you know, different ways to culture biochar, build soil. Well, you know, so sorry to be so nakedly promotional there, but
[00:25:50] Craig Macmillan: Well, you know, you're directing, you're directing people towards resources,
[00:25:53] Kelpie Wilson: right.
[00:25:53] Craig Macmillan: Anything else?
[00:25:54] Kelpie Wilson: Oh, well, I'll send you some other resources, too, that you don't have to buy the book. Check out the U. S. Biotar Initiative website. There's a Biotar Learning Center there and USBI has collected a lot of resources there. fact sheets, their seminars, webinars. There is a lot of biochar information out there.
And I will say I've watched a few YouTube videos that are just. Make me cringe it is so easy to experiment with it yourself, which is great. It's really great that people experiment with it. And I think, feel free, you know, do your own experiments. , there's some not so great information out there that, you might want to just do your own work and look at the more authoritative sources like that the USBI before you take what a YouTuber says as, as gospel about biochar.
So I guess my one advice really on both, topics of production and application is just jump in and try it. It's so easy. You know, make it, make a bonfire in your backyard or, any kind of little container. You could dig a little shallow pit in the ground and, just make some biochar, then you've got some.
Now do some, greenhouse trials. You know, see how it interacts with your soil because every soil is different. And so, check the pH, add it to, you know, your soil, and, grow a seedling. it's very easy to do some experiments. I actually have, in my book, a whole procedure for how to do a, scientifically valid experiment. Uh, Pot trial in the greenhouse, so you can really, step by step, you can really look and see how it compares with other amendments, try it in your compost pile, use a compost thermometer, it's not straightforward how to use it in compost, because again, compost like soil, it's going to have a lot of different kinds of ingredients, biochar does really interesting things, in compost, so.
Just try it.
[00:27:46] Craig Macmillan: Just try it. Like that's great advice. Our guest today has been Kelpie Wilson. She's the owner of Wilson Biochar Associates Consulting and Manufacturing. Thank you so much for being on the podcast. This has been some really great practical, actionable information, which is what we like to bring our listeners.
As Kelpie mentioned, we're going to have a lot of links to things and resources and whatnot on the show notes. So be sure to travel to that page. I'm finding that this is a growing topic of interest, but I'm finding that there's more and more folks that are trying it, and we're all very excited for what the potential might be.
[00:28:17] Beth Vukmanic: Thank you for listening. Today's podcast was brought to you by San agro. WestBridge is now San aggro. When the opportunity came to expand their reach and improve their customer's bottom line, they took it. San Agros commitment to deliver science-based solutions for sustainable crop health and nutrition remains the same.
They offer a full line of plant nutrients, bio pesticides, and specialty inputs. Visit San agro.com to learn more.
Make sure you check out the show notes for links to Kelpie her new book, the bio char handbook, a practical guide to making and using bioactivated charcoal loads, more links to bio char plus sustainable Winegrowing podcast episodes. 56 conservation burning and bio char. 1 0 6, what? Barry charcoal and the vineyard. 1 67. Used bio char to combat climate change and two 15 bio char production on a commercial scale. If you'd liked the show, do us a big favor by sharing it with a friend. Subscribing and leaving us a review.
You can find all of the podcasts on vineyard team.org/podcast. And you can reach [email protected]. Until next time, this is sustainable. Winegrowing with the vineyard team.
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[00:00:00] Customer sense of urgency around climate change is rising. In fact, 78% of global consumers feel that environmental sustainability is important.
[00:00:10] Welcome to marketing tip Monday with sip certified. We know customers are looking for wines labeled as sustainable while our longer form episodes help you learn about the latest science and research for the wine industry. These twice monthly micro podcasts will help you share your dedication to sustainable wine growing.
[00:00:29] Customers like the idea of being sustainable and want to live more sustainable lives. While, many brands and retailers today are making eco-friendly claims. Some chalk up to little more than greenwashing. A marketing ploy designed to make products seem more sustainable than they are. Because of this consumers can feel that they can't always trust green claims.
[00:00:50] It is more important than ever for sustainable brands like you to share your sustainable story in a meaningful and authentic way.
[00:00:58] In this week's marketing tip. We share a great example. With Niner wine estates, sustainable story on the value of energy efficiency.
[00:01:06] Electricity use in the winery accounts for a large proportion of the end products, energy demand. From keeping buildings and tanks at proper temperatures to powering equipment and lighting energy use in the winery adds up quickly. Anticipating increasing energy demand and cost. Niner wine estates built its winery into a hillside. Because of this, the ground level on one side of the building is a couple of stories higher. Then the ground level on the other side. This wasn't a flaw in the design, rather, a strategy to allow for a gravity flow winemaking system. are brought into the facility at the top level, instead of being transferred by machines, the grapes move with gravity down the tiers of the building through each stage of the winemaking process.
[00:01:51] Another other energy efficient benefit of the hillside is that the earth surrounding the building works as a natural insulator, reducing the need for a cooling system to keep the facility at optimal temperatures. is another element that Niner wine estates utilizes large windows in the production facility and tasting rooms allow sunlight to fill these buildings during the day. When they do need electricity. The grid is not their primary source. Since 2015, the majority of their tasting room restaurant. Wineries and Wells have been powered by the sun. There are two banks of high efficient solar panels on the property. One at the top of their winery building and the other on the ground next to their tasting room.
[00:02:33] Additional solar panels can be found in the parking lot, but they aren't used to power business operations.
[00:02:39] solar banks are on top of EVs charging stations, welcoming staff and guests to plug in while they enjoy their time at nine or wine estates.
[00:02:47] Together. All of these components have a significant impact on Niner wine estates, energy efficiency. them to symbols of sustainability, achievement, sip certified and lead a certified level. Silver. Make sure you check out the show notes. For the link called stacking energy savings, sustainable story at Niner wine estates to see pictures of their energy efficient facility.
[00:03:13] here to help you tell your customers how your brand protects natural and human resources with the sustainable story program. This simple, yet powerful free tool helps you tell your own personal and it just got better. With the upgraded online course, go to the show notes, click the link titled tell your sustainable story. To sign up and start writing yours today.
[00:03:35] Until next time, this is sustainable. Winegrowing with the vineyard team.
Tell Your Sustainable StoryWe are here to help you tell your customers how your brand protects natural and human resources with the Sustainable Story program.
This simple yet powerful free tool helps you tell your own personal sustainable message. And it just got better with a new online course. Go to the show notes, click the link titled Tell Your Sustainable Story to sign up, and start writing yours today!
Until next time, this is Sustainable Winegrowing with the Vineyard Team.
Resources: *** Tell Your Sustainable Story Online Course *** 240: Stacking Energy Savings | Sustainable Story: Niner Wine Estates Apply for SIP Certified Wine Marketing Tips eNewsletter Sustainable Story | Print Sustainable Story | Electronic What's your Sustainable Story? Vineyard Team Programs: Juan Nevarez Memorial Scholarship - Donate SIP Certified – Show your care for the people and planet Sustainable Ag Expo – The premiere winegrowing event of the year Sustainable Winegrowing On-Demand (Western SARE) – Learn at your own pace Vineyard Team – Become a Member -
We regularly hear about eclectic tractors but have you tried an electric truck? Duff Bevill, Founder and Partner and Brooke Parsons, Viticulture Analyst at Bevill Vineyard Management were part of the Ford Pro Pilot Project. They tested the capacity of an electric van, truck towing capabilities, and battery life of electric vehicles during day to day farming operations. The pair discuss the benefits of tracking GPS and maintenance through Ford’s Telematics and the things you need to consider when looking to add an electric truck to your fleet.
Resources: 120: Autonomous Drone Vineyard Spraying 219: Intelligent Sprayers to Improve Fungicide Applications and Save Money 225: California’s Ban on Autonomous Tractors Bevill Vineyard Management Farming of the Future: Ford Pro, Sonoma County Winegrowers Join Forces to Electrify Business of Farming Sustainable Farming in Sonoma County Vineyard Team Programs: Juan Nevarez Memorial Scholarship - Donate SIP Certified – Show your care for the people and planet Sustainable Ag Expo – The premiere winegrowing event of the year - PODCAST24 Sustainable Winegrowing On-Demand (Western SARE) – Learn at your own pace Vineyard Team – Become a Member Get MoreSubscribe wherever you listen so you never miss an episode on the latest science and research with the Sustainable Winegrowing Podcast. Since 1994, Vineyard Team has been your resource for workshops and field demonstrations, research, and events dedicated to the stewardship of our natural resources.
Learn more at www.vineyardteam.org.
Transcript[00:00:05] Beth Vukmanic: We regularly hear about electric tractors, but have you tried an electric truck? Welcome to sustainable wine growing with Vineyard Team. Where we bring you the latest in science and research for the wine industry. I'm Beth Vukmanic, executive director. Since 1994, we have brought you the latest science-based practices, experts, growers, and wine industry tools. Through both infield and online education so that you can grow your business. Please raise a glass with us as we cheers to 30 years.
[00:00:37] In today's podcast Craig Macmillan, critical resource manager at Niner wine estates with long time SIP Certified vineyard and the first ever SIP certified winery. Speaks with Duff Bevill. Founder and partner. And Brooke Parsons, viticulture analyst at Bevill vineyard management.
[00:00:55] They were part of the Ford probe pilot project, where they tested the capacity of an electric van. Truck towing capabilities and battery life of electric vehicles during day-to-day farming operations. The pair discussed the benefits of tracking GPS and maintenance through Ford telematics and the things you need to consider when looking to add an electric truck to your fleet.
[00:01:17] . Because you listened to this podcast, you won't want to miss the premier wine growing event of the year, the Sustainable Ag Expo. Enjoy the perfect blend of in-person and online learning. Speak directly with national experts earn over 20 hours of continuing education. And explore sustainable ag. Vendors. It all takes place.
[00:01:38] November 12th through 13th, 2024 at the Madonna Inn expo center in San Luis Obispo, California. As a listener to this podcast, take $50 off of your ticket. When you use code podcast 24 at checkout. Get yours today at sustainableagexpo.org. Now let's listen in.
[00:01:56] Craig Macmillan: Our guests today are Duff Bevill and Brooke Parsons. Duff is owner of Bevill Vineyard Management in Sonoma County. And Brooke Parsons is Viticulture Analyst with Bevill Vineyard Management. And we're going to talk about the Ford Pro Pilot Project that they're involved in. Thanks for being on the podcast.
[00:02:19] Duff Bevill: You bet, man.
[00:02:19] We're happy to be here.
[00:02:20] Craig Macmillan: So Duff, what exactly is this project? How'd you get involved in it? Give us a little history.
[00:02:26] Duff Bevill: Yeah, back in I think it was September, October of 2021. Well, I'm involved with the Sonoma County growers organization and Carissa Cruz, our president and Carissa.
[00:02:37] Got a name of somebody to call. And she made a cold call to a Ford motor company. And then I think one more phone call after that. And she got in touch with Ford pro told him what we were interested in doing. Thought whether it was a perfect fit because our sustainability program that we've you know, managed now for more than a decade, well over a decade.
[00:02:54] And Ford sent someone from Detroit out here to meet with us over dinner and another representative out of Sacramento that was, I think, a lobbyist for Ford, I can't remember exactly. His role, but both of them came out here and she cold called a couple of us to come and have dinner with his middle of harvest and yeah, we hit it off and she went back to I guess, technically Dearborn and told them back there that we were legitimate and she thought that they should pursue something with us.
[00:03:19] So that, that was in September, October, then in November around Thanksgiving. A team from Ford came to meet with us. They want to know size of our fleet of vehicles. They're just trying to get some, to find out how legitimate we might be. And they went back positive. And then the following January, so it'd be January of 2022 Ford came out full blown to Sonoma County, out to the Dutton Ranch.
[00:03:43] And we had a big, giant press release. President Jim Farley came out from Ford, all on film, gave a talk and that sort of thing, and it was a big deal. So that really launched, it's really January of 2022. Roughly probably March, I think it was, of 2022, they didn't have the lightened pickup trucks available yet.
[00:04:01] That was still, suffering from COVID, you know, and, and Production was down. So , they actually had some Ford vans, electric vans, which they just gave us a try and Brooke she was basically assigned that van and tried to figure out what to do with it. And so we, all collectively came up with an idea on how to use the vans, although you know, they're just not a fit for farming, but we made, we made it work out.
[00:04:23] And then I think it was in June, we finally pick up the lightning. So June of 2022, we've got the lightnings. And then what we did was we gave Ford feedback. We met with engineers, either Zoom or in person on a pretty regular basis for the better part of a year. More than a year probably.
[00:04:40] Just getting feedback from a farming point of view, you know, from us using vehicles in the field. And each one of the three companies used them differently and to gather information. I personally wanted to drive it so I could see. How it would work if I want to buy more, would actually work for me .
[00:04:56] I know one of the other companies used to have their shop mechanics use it and another company had one of their field foreman use it. So all of us really tried something different with it and for different reasons. But anyways, that's how it worked out. And we just fed information back and forth, making recommendations, you know, see if there's any flaws that Came up and we'd report back immediately to them.
[00:05:14] We saw something that Could be improved or or ask why it was the way it was that sort of thing
[00:05:20] Craig Macmillan: And we're talking about a completely electric vehicle that's designed for farm use Is that right?
[00:05:25] Duff Bevill: The concept of ford pro so I got my ford hat on right now the concept of ford pro It's a division that was created to really focus on business people with fleets so farming was a connection I don't think they thought of until we reached out to them.
[00:05:42] I think on paper, originally they were looking at the local contractor. You know, the guy was he drove it personally, he was the contractor, or he had a couple carpenters working for him. I think that was probably it initially. Whether they were thinking of farming at all until we reached out to them.
[00:05:58] I don't know. They almost certainly weren't thinking of wine grape growing on the west coast. I think that the whole name Ford Pro, it was really targeted to professional business people who would normally have a pickup truck and how they could adapt using electric vehicle.
[00:06:15] Craig Macmillan: I wasn't familiar with this until this came up for this episode. Is this product line is, is that commercially available at the time that you approached them? Is it available now? Is it still in kind of a testing state?
[00:06:26] Duff Bevill: They weren't available yet, but they were marketing in the summer of for sure the fall, but certainly the summer of 2021.
[00:06:33] I saw ads on TV or Something that would pop up on a website. If you're on Googling something else on a Ford pro for a lightning come up for 10 seconds and disappeared on it. It was a little bit of a tease at that point. But I know the one I got or the one that we have now was number one Oh nine.
[00:06:48] Craig Macmillan: Okay.
[00:06:49] Duff Bevill: I used to kid them asking, tell them I wanted number one, but they wouldn't give it to me. But I got number one oh nine and, they were just beginning to market it you know, shortly after Covid hit. And so they continued to in, in 2021, you know, we were basically all shut down in 2020.
[00:07:05] And 2021 was still pretty disastrous, but they were but all their production facilities were shut down. I mean, they came to a halt just like everybody else. So I think they anticipated getting out there, marketing earlier, making it available earlier. But I think the biggest stumbling block was for, I think a lot of manufacturers, they just didn't have the chips from the big chip manufacturer in Hong Kong.
[00:07:25] And that was what it boiled down to. I think it was true for all the car companies. Yeah.
[00:07:30] Craig Macmillan: Yeah. I remember that.
[00:07:31] Duff Bevill: That was, you had to get that out there. And so they had a marketing plan. They created a division. They had a president of the division identified. The marketing team was in place.
[00:07:38] All the engineers were shifted to the Ford pro team. You know, we got to meet almost all those people, I could, make a phone call to one of the head engineers anytime I wanted to, or send them a text or an email.
[00:07:49] Craig Macmillan: Wow.
[00:07:50] Duff Bevill: It was a real interesting experience.
[00:07:53] Craig Macmillan: And you said you got a van first, is that right?
[00:07:56] Duff Bevill: Yeah, Brooke drove it, yeah.
[00:07:57] Craig Macmillan: That got handed over to you, Brooke. What was that like? Did you have experience with electric vehicles prior to that? Did you have experience with vans prior to that? Were you, Pickup truck person.
[00:08:05] Brooke Parsons: Good questions. Yes. I had never driven a van much prior, especially for viticultural tasks. Before using the e transit, I used a pickup with a trailer that I would load a four wheeler onto the trailer and the e transit took the place of the trailer and the pickup. So I loaded With a ramp. The four wheeler inside.
[00:08:31] Craig Macmillan: Oh, it was a pretty good sized vehicle then.
[00:08:33] Duff Bevill: Yeah. A half ton chassis. It was basically F-150 chassis, but the van, you know?
[00:08:38] Craig Macmillan: Oh like a panel van.
[00:08:40] Duff Bevill: Exactly.
[00:08:41] Craig Macmillan: Oh, okay. I was thinking like in a condo van.
[00:08:44] This is more like a panel van. You got room to put stuff in. That makes sense. More like a, more like a service truck.
[00:08:48] Brooke Parsons: Like a service truck. So I'd open the back of it to load the four wheeler, but I could also open the side to access my tools and whatnot. It was nice.
[00:08:59] Duff Bevill: They actually outfitted it with shelving. Which would have been perfect if you were like a plumber or an electrician. But with the shelving it made the bay too narrow that we couldn't even fit the four wheeler and ATVs, so we had to take the shelving out so we could use it for that purpose.
[00:09:14] You know, we just substitute trailer and a pickup truck for the van. But how long did you drive that van?
[00:09:20] Brooke Parsons: I drove it for one full season, so May or June through the end of harvest.
[00:09:25] Craig Macmillan: How did you find that? Cause you see that all the time. You see the truck with the trailer, with the ATV in the back.
[00:09:30] How did you find that moving up to a van? Did you find it easier to drive? More difficult? Were you not as confident
[00:09:34] Brooke Parsons: I loved it because I didn't have to worry about a trailer and I didn't have to unload it each night to put it in the barn. So I just closed it all up and it was safe inside the van.
[00:09:46] If I went anywhere. I felt safe to leave the four wheeler locked inside and it wouldn't be tampered with. It was simple enough to bring back to the shop and charge every day and be ready to go the next morning.
[00:10:01] Craig Macmillan: That was gonna be my next question, Brooke. So when you first started with this, did you have any concerns about range?
[00:10:05] Duff Bevill: All of us do.
[00:10:07] Brooke Parsons: Yeah, that was the number one concern was range. For our operation, we farm all in Sonoma County and in a given day, I wasn't driving more than say a hundred miles in the van and it did make a difference in the range, whether or not I had weight in the vehicle or not, or if I use the heat or not.
[00:10:32] I didn't have as much range in the van as the Ford Lightning. And I had to be careful there were a couple of scary moments that I thought I'd have to call Somebody to come get me, but I never ultimately ran out of power
[00:10:48] Craig Macmillan: So with a little practice and a little experience, you knew
[00:10:51] Duff Bevill: If you were to buy a a ford lightning, I don't know about the other electric vehicles in the ford product line But for sure the lightning you would have a choice of, I think, two different battery packs.
[00:11:02] One they refer to, I believe it's just standard. And then they had a second option or an option that would be the extended battery. My understanding at the time, the Ford, pro version of the Ford Lightning came with a standard battery. But when they heard I was, you know, initially I was getting over 300 miles in a charge, I asked them about that and they said let us get back to you.
[00:11:22] Well, a week later they got back and said, oh yeah, that's right, we set yours up, or the three, but for sure mine, the one we still have, with the big battery. They sort of custom built that truck. These three are one offs in that first early run of the heavier battery pack, which to me and I suggested this to him, if the marketing is intended to be to the professional business owner driving a pickup truck, I think Ford pro should just be, you have a standard big battery in it for those reasons.
[00:11:50] They may do that. I have no idea. You're got a professional driver. He's in there going from. The lumber yard to the job site down to the Supply depot for something else. I would just think that's just based on our habits in the farming industry.
[00:12:03] You're shuffling around and it seems to me that'd be a good option, but anyways, It worked out great for me.
[00:12:08] Craig Macmillan: So you've been driving the lightning now for a little while, right?
[00:12:11] Duff Bevill: I drove it for the first two I guess nine months just so I could assess How I might want to buy more of them for , our operation here.
[00:12:19] We buy a couple of pickup trucks every year. I gave , the, pickup to Brooke. So she now drives the pickup cause we turned the van back in.
[00:12:25] Craig Macmillan: I figured that might get kicked back to you so Brooke now you've driven the van now you're driving the truck How do you feel about the truck?
[00:12:31] Brooke Parsons: It handles better than any vehicle. I've ever driven. I love to drive it. I'm very proud of it and I Like it a lot zero complaints
[00:12:41] Craig Macmillan: Even though you have to have a trailer again
[00:12:42] Brooke Parsons: Even though I have to have a trailer again, that's okay.
[00:12:45] Duff Bevill: It was remarkable how it seemed like it was luxurious riding because the electric horsepower, . That thing is so powerful. One of the things, again, my understanding of the engineers, they redesigned the chassis on it.
[00:12:57] So Ford that F one 50 has four wheel, all four corners, independent suspension. Soon as we got to, we put it up on the rack to take a look at the, Technology underneath it. Look at the batteries, you know, you're not touching anything, you're just looking at everything.
[00:13:10] And they designed this beautiful cast aluminum suspension for the back end of that truck. That you'd find in a, I don't know, luxurious European automobile, I think. But it's built heavy to handle all that, torque. You know, oh, it's like, I don't know, 800, horsepower when you push the special button on the dashboard, you know, and it's pretty stunning the performance and that's all torque.
[00:13:31] That's twisting power. And so the engineers had to design into that thing, something capable of handling that much torque is beautiful. But the point is a four wheel independent suspension just rides beautifully cars heavier. So about a thousand pounds heavier, I think because of the batteries. So the comments, the extra weight.
[00:13:47] And a very sophisticated suspension. It's just like a luxury sedan. And you're driving pretty nice.
[00:13:52] Craig Macmillan: And so Brooke, you've been driving this truck now, one of the things that has come up around electric vehicles has been the question of horsepower end of torque.
[00:13:59] How do you feel this truck performs compared to like, let's say a diesel dually,
[00:14:03] Brooke Parsons: It accelerates very quickly, so getting onto the freeway is no problem when it's busy. And the other biggest factor that I notice is braking. You hardly have to brake and it takes a little bit of time to get used to because when you take your foot off of the accelerator, it naturally stops because the engine isn't going.
[00:14:29] And you hardly have to use your brakes, which is very nice.
[00:14:33] Duff Bevill: When I first got it, my wife had a Prius many, many years ago, and she pretty much drove it right off the lot. The way it was set up from the dealer. Well, I discovered that you could switch to regeneration on electric. So when you did let off the throttle, it would break by regenerating electric motors, regenerate electricity, put it back in the battery.
[00:14:52] Well, that's the first thing I did on this lightning. Find that setting I think in the nine months that I drove it I told the guys at Ford I said, I'll bet you I didn't touch the brakes ten times in those nine months
[00:15:03] Brooke Parsons: but to answer your question I've only pulled light things behind it and So I haven't really put it to the test in that way.
[00:15:13] Craig Macmillan: I was doing a little research on this and I understand that there's like a data collection and management component to this that's attractive.
[00:15:19] What can you tell me about that? Have you used that feature? It can tell you about your fleet, I guess?
[00:15:24] Duff Bevill: Aside from electric vehicles Ford was really interested in us, Using and learning to use, and hearing back from us, their telematics. That's what they call it, Ford Telematics.
[00:15:37] And I think it was initially launched with the Ford Pro division, where you sign up every vehicle in your fleet. We've got like 20 Ford pickup trucks, something like that. If you go back all the way, I want to say like to 2014.
[00:15:49] Prior to that, I'm not sure, but for sure, like 2014, the electronics in those vehicles have the capability of just hooking up to the telematic system. The Ford is promoting, and if you get it into your fleet and get your, your vehicles in entered in your fleet, you can monitor them. Of course, like GPS, that's what everybody's doing nowadays, but much more than that, your shop manager could know, have a better use of knowing when it's time for an oil change, you know, we just do it.
[00:16:14] We track that kind of stuff, hard copy paper, put a sticker on the dashboard and the drivers relay to us when the mileage number comes up, they notify the shop manager and we schedule for a service. Typically the oil filter change and then in general inspection we inspect the brakes and all that kind of stuff.
[00:16:31] With the telematics they have the potential setting up where you could punch in a timeline that you wanted either by the calendar. Like every 12 months on the vehicles that we don't run very much. We do a major inspection every 12 months. And then the ones that actually have the mileage being for somewhere between five and 7, 000 miles, something like that.
[00:16:50] Depends on the vehicle. Depends on the tractor or it's a pickup truck or a full size class eight diesel truck. And so all that stuff is available. And one of the pluses and this happened to us. It was a perfect, we've used this as an example. Typically in modern vehicles, the components that fail first are the sensors that measure your NOX exhaust pipes.
[00:17:11] Those are the ones that are going bad. Probably because of the heat cycle they go through because of their exhaust pipes, right? So about anywhere between 40, 000 and 60, 000 miles, those are the devices that fail. So one of our foremen called the shop, our shop manager, and said check engine light came on.
[00:17:27] I guess he got the code through telematics, identified it as an oxygen sensor, ordered the part. The truck never came back to the shop. It's still out on the job site. We're supposed to be with the crew. He gets the parts ordered. The delivery guys bring the part to the shop that day. And it's interesting how it works is that is the analysis is it is 90 percent likely it's your oxygen sensor. They come up and then when the guy back that night, they bring it right into the shop and change that sensor. At the end of the day, confirmed that that was the part that needed to be replaced.
[00:18:00] The next day was back on the job site, all repaired. The only other way around that would have been. Bring it back to the shop. Get your, your analysis device on it, you know, on the onboard computer or mechanic drives out to the job site, does the same thing at the job site.
[00:18:16] And then it comes back or it comes out, orders the parts on a telephone or something like that. So it's saves time. There's no doubt about it. And there's a lot more to, manage a lot of the of systems we have already in place Ford doing the same thing with their telematics.
[00:18:28] So some of the things Didn't have any added value because we already have that kind of technology, but they were expanding a lot of that technology for fleet management. So that's a real plus. And they were constantly tweaking that in making improvements on the usability of it and that sort of thing.
[00:18:44] So that was a big deal. That was a big one.
[00:18:47] Craig Macmillan: The fleet management aspect of having an electric vehicle like this with this kind of a technology going into the future could be huge for a farm, could be huge for a management company like yourself that has properties all over the place. That kind of remote diagnostic is really amazing.
[00:18:59] The idea of like, Hey, the light's on. Okay, I'll fix it tonight. No problem.
[00:19:03] Duff Bevill: Well, the other big plus is when we put that lightning up on the rack, just to take a look at it, you know, we're just kind of noodling through the, , there's no oil to change in an engine. We found one plug access to a transmission on it.
[00:19:18] But even the owner's manual says don't touch any of that kind of stuff. You know, they can be serviced, but there's no schedule for servicing. The disc brakes, I don't think you'd ever If you use the vehicle to its maximum value, I don't think you'd ever put brakes in it. There's no transmission transitions made up of hundreds and hundreds of parts. It's not electric motors or a simple, simple mechanical device and the internal combustion engine has hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of parts that aren't there. So it has the potential of being over the ownership timeline of it.
[00:19:52] A lot less cost per mile. Even when you, you calculate in your Cost of electricity charge, but we have here and we've got solar panels here too. We already had installed From a number of years ago So we've got sort of that added advantage whether the electric vehicle made a little bit even more sense because we're already kind of using discounted Power
[00:20:11] Craig Macmillan: that was going to be my next question. i'm assuming your solar is connected to the grid So it's an offset so you're not islanded, but you still have the, you're generating power on your own.
[00:20:20] So you've got onsite power generation to power your fleet to a degree. That's brilliant. Yeah, that's fantastic. I remember years ago people were complaining about diesel engines and friends of mine were like, well, if you build us a solar truck, I'll freaking drive it. I got no problem with that.
[00:20:33] Well, here we are. What do you know? It's 30 years later, we have solar trucks, in effect. There has to have been some obstacles to adopting this. Were there some roadblocks or some things you had to learn along the way before you really felt like you were totally comfortable?
[00:20:46] Duff Bevill: Well, like I said, I was familiar with a hybrid.
[00:20:49] I still drive a hybrid. I drive a hybrid Ford pickup truck now. We had to get a charging station installed. Here at the office and then, you know, there's a decision. Do I do it at home or do the office? I wanted to hear at the office because that's where the fleet is parked and I had to think through, you know, get the one installed and how many more can I have and how many trucks will it eventually service without a major infrastructure redesign.
[00:21:11] So we've got that one put in and I, in the process, I had the electrician who was recommended to us. I had him install extra conduits underground. That are dummy right now. I assume we'll, we'll, extend for more pickup trucks.
[00:21:25] That was really the big obstacle. And then that's why I drove it because I want to know firsthand exactly what I was up against. I accomplished what I wanted. I want to learn as much as I could about it. Being there, having access to the Ford people, especially the engineers. Was on the fast track of having a better understanding.
[00:21:40] I got to talk to the guys who actually, one guy designed the grill, the other guy designed the dashboard. I mean, I was talking to those,
[00:21:45] Craig Macmillan: you had access. Yeah. That's, that's pretty amazing. Brooke, what was your learning curve? Like you talked about a couple of things, but were there obstacles that you felt you kind of ran across that you had to figure out, or that could be improvements
[00:21:56] Brooke Parsons: just forming the habit of charging.
[00:21:57] One time I forgot and. I was responsible for getting people someplace in the morning and it made me nervous. But you do that once or twice and you don't forget. So that was the real only obstacle. When traveling a longer distance, I did have to learn how to find charging stations that work well, are compatible with the lightning.
[00:22:25] And Ford is making advances in that area, now partnered with Tesla to use their system. And so that will only improve. But really it's around learning how to use the logistics of electric charging.
[00:22:44] Craig Macmillan: Right. And that's true for electric charging. For all of that. And you're right. I think a little bit of practice.
[00:22:49] Most of the folks that I know with electric vehicles, they're scared at first, and then they kind of figure it out. Now that you've had a chance to work with this, I think I already know the answer to this question. I mean, there's a question for both of you. When you were looking to your crystal ball, how do you see this technology being applied in the future?
[00:23:03] Duff Bevill: Think there's a place for it. I'm not so sure that one type of energy source is going to be the, solution for everything. I think practically, I think it's going to be some kind of a combination of energy sources and I don't discount nuclear.
[00:23:14] There's probably a place for everything, certainly in a transition period that that'll work best for all. Electrician put in the the charging station for us. He said, , if everybody's gonna go electric, the package must be solar panels, um, battery storage, either a large battery storage in a community setting, you know, like in a neighborhood or a small city size.
[00:23:37] Or you'll have battery storage areas that is appropriate, like maybe at our farm shop. Because we're commercial, we would be a candidate for battery storage, at least for our operation. So you'd have a solution for, you know, we're back to Sonoma County weather conditions again for the first time in quite a few years.
[00:23:55] I mean, it's overcast and rainy a lot of days out of the year. If you have solar panels, they're just not going to be working as efficiently and you still have to go to work every day and get your people to work. If you are relying. Let's say exclusively on electric, you've got to have something other than solar panel on the roof
[00:24:09] so windmill, solar panels, battery storage, there's some combination of multiple technologies. I just think that's sort of realistic of what it is. Do you want 95 percent of it to be coal? No, none of us do, you know, cause we all know the story there, but is, is there a place for coal for 10 percent of it?
[00:24:25] 15 percent of it. Don't know. I have no idea. It's good. I mean, we liked it. It's you know, just, we're not relying on it entirely right now, but we'll phase into it as time goes on.
[00:24:33] Craig Macmillan: Well, that was going to be, and and maybe Brookie also can kind of speak to this. I mean, is there a time when there isn't going to be a diesel truck on the farm?
[00:24:40] Duff Bevill: We're more concerned about diesel tractors. You know, the evolution went from, steam, you know, the early 1900s. The steam to, and then, you know, both in automobiles and, and on, on the farm, the competition was steam or gasoline because diesel wasn't invented yet.
[00:24:58] diesel engine wasn't invented until the 1920s. So turn of the century, 19th and 20th century, it was a competition between steam and gasoline, gasoline won. So gasoline surge forward all the way into the 1930s and with a few exceptions and in the 1940s, but by the 1950s. There was a clear transition that diesel was much, much more efficient, you know, pound for pound and horsepower for horsepower.
[00:25:24] I can't even think of where you could buy a gasoline tractor once you got in the 1970s. I'm sure you could still, but it represented a really small percentage. And by the 80s and 90s, it's all diesel.down to almost lawnmower size you can get it John Deere ride along more, you probably have a choice between gasoline and and diesel power to mow the golf course,
[00:25:42] that's actually transitioning to electric now too, you know, those, those small ones will plug it in and then mow for two hours, we're not even in the transition part of that story yet.
[00:25:52] There's a couple, manufacturers that have electric tractors the, inconvenience of them is really insurmountable right now, but changing batteries at lunchtime in your barn and that kind of stuff, tough. That's, tough technology.
[00:26:05] Craig Macmillan: It's still new. Yeah, this is still new. We're still finding our way there. I've talked to people about that topic quite a bit. It'll get better. Yeah, we'll see where it goes. Hey, Brooke, what is one thing that you'd recommend to listeners if they're thinking about adopting electric vehicles for the farm?
[00:26:20] Brooke Parsons: Would say be open to trying new things. It expands your mind and. It allows opportunity that would not be there otherwise. And be okay with mistakes. That's how we learn.
[00:26:37] Craig Macmillan: That's great advice. I think that's really, really good. Where can people find out more about you at Beville Vineyard Management?
[00:26:43] Duff Bevill: Look at our website BevillVineyard.Com Get you right to the, right to the website.
[00:26:47] Craig Macmillan: Well, I want, to both for being here. Thanks, Duff, and thanks, Brooke, for being here.
[00:26:51] Duff Bevill: Well, thank you for reaching out to us.
[00:26:53] Brooke Parsons: You're welcome. Thank you.
[00:26:55] Beth Vukmanic: Thank you for listening. Today's podcast was brought to you by Valent. Bio-sciences a leader in biostimulants constantly delivering, cutting edge innovation to maximize their customers yields and ROI.
[00:27:14] Their are 40 plus products span the three bio stimulant brands providing solutions for every acre. Make sure you check out the show notes. For links to Bevill vineyard management. Articles on the Ford Pro Pilot project and sustainable Winegrowing podcast episodes. 120 autonomous drone vineyard spring. 219 intelligent sprayers to improve fungicide applications and save money. And 225 California's ban on autonomous tractors.
[00:27:44] If you liked the show, do us a big favor by sharing it with a friend subscribing and leaving us a review. That helps us reach more listeners. Like you, you can find all of the [email protected] / podcast, and you can reach us at [email protected].
[00:28:00] Until next time, this is sustainable. Winegrowing with the vineyard team.
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