Here is our final report. Beyond the numbers from the organic and conventional vineyards, we believe this is one of the best practical resources available on how to convert a vineyard to organic management, and what can happen along the way. Please share it widely! You can download the full report HERE. Printed copies of […]
For those interested in the nitty gritty, here are some direct reports from our soil data providers, vineyard managers and winemakers. All of this information is summarised in the final report from the project. Soil Reports from the 3-year Organic Conversion Process Soil Quality Report by Tim Jenkins of the Centre for Sustainable Agricultural Technologies […]
We are pleased to present the complete report on Season Two (Vintage 2013) of the Organic Focus Vineyard project. We believe this is currently the most thorough, NZ-relevant resource on the process of converting vineyards to organic production. This report integrates independent monitoring data with the vineyard managers’ experiences and observations. It paints a full […]
We are pleased to release the monitoring data from the first year of the Organic Focus Vineyard project. This report includes information on pest and disease incidence, maturity and yields, soil moisture and irrigation, and production costs, for both conventional and organic grape varieties on all three focus vineyards during the first growing season in […]
Fruition Horticulture and Hydro Services are providing soil moisture and irrigation monitoring for the focus vineyards. You can follow the data in real time throughout the current season, with side by side comparisons of the organic and conventional treatments, here, on Fruition’s website. Here’s the full irrigation monitoring report from the 2011-12 season: Irrigation Report […]
There were no visible differences in the growth of the organic and conventional Syrah during the 2011-12 season. Without the herbicide strip under the conventional vines and the cultivated strip under the organic, it would be hard to tell the two apart. In these photos conventional is on the left, organic on the right. This […]
The conventional and organic vines showed extremely similar growth throughout the 2011-12 season. This was the vineyard’s first year in organic conversion.
Organic and conventional growth patterns were similar throughout the 2011-12 season. The organic vines were slightly less vigourous in some areas, and by the end of the season the organic leaves had a more yellow colour in comparison to the conventional. However, the organic yielded more highly than conventional. This was the vineyard’s first year […]
Organic and conventional growth patterns were similar during the 2011-12 season, with the organic slightly less vigourous than the conventional in some areas of the vineyard. This was the vineyard’s first year in organic conversion.
During the 2011-12 season, the organic Pinot Noir developed a less vigourous canopy than the conventional, and was behind the conventional in its growth stage for much of the season. Reasons for this are not known but could include rootstock differences, young vines adapting to having their surface roots cut by cultivation, or other factors, […]
