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AWARD WINNING ORGANICALLY PRODUCED WINES |
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| Soil
and Plant Nutrition |
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Our organic standards
are the same as set by COABC (Certified
Organic Associations of British Columbia). We
managing our Vine Yards very specific to
organic soil amendments, fertilizers and
growth promoters. The standards contain
long lists of allowed, regulated and prohibited
practices and substances, too detailed
to be helpful in the context of our general
discussion. It's more important, we think,
to provide the rationale behind the restrictions,
than to delve into the minutiae of what's
allowed and what's not.
Conventional agriculture, following the
lead of ever-advancing technology, treats
soil as merely the anchor for the plants
and the medium through which the plants
were fed. Many nutrients are still externally
sourced and applied, and often very little
attention is paid to the long-term health
and viability of the soil itself.
Soil is, however, a living part of our
ecosystem, and organic viticultural practices
are designed to protect and enhance a
natural and healthy interaction between
the soil, what's in it, and what's around
it. Soil already contains complex organic
matter, minerals and communities of micro
flora and fauna--whenever we add something
to it, including plants, we run the risk
of disturbing the natural balance. This
does not mean that organic growers naively
adopt a completely noninterventionist
attitude--to do so would be irresponsible
and financially suicidal. What it does
mean, however, is that everything added
to the soil in the organic Vine Yard is
selected to supply nutrients that are
more likely to be compatible with what's
already there. Instead of forcing the
soil to become a monoculture predetermined
by us, we're supporting its existing,
complex polyculture and helping out our
vines at the same time.
Grapevines, fortunately, will produce
very good fruit even in relatively infertile
soil. We have found that we can maintain
plant vigour and condition our gravelly/sandy
soil at the same time with annual applications
of composted manure from Valley Brand
Fertilizer in Kelowna. The manure has
been analyzed for its macro- and micro-nutritional
composition and is itself Certified Organic,
thus allaying any concerns that it contains
unknown or harmful material. This manure
is more expensive than conventional synthetic
fertilizer; it also requires more labour
to apply. But it's such lovely stuff;
it has the texture of a fine bark mulch
and it smells a lot like pipe tobacco.
Crop yields in our Vine Yard are certainly
lower than in many conventional Vine Yards;
our average yield is approximately 2 to
2.5 tons per acre. However, our plants
are healthy, our soil is gradually being
built up with organic matter (assisting
with moisture retention, thereby reducing
irrigation demand and leaching), and we
know that we are not contributing to Okanagan
Lake's significant phosphate pollution
problem, created by fertilizer-saturated
runoff from lawns, golf courses and agricultural
acreage.
Some, including the venerable Jancis
Robinson, suggest that organic grape growing
is opportunistic pandering to a chemophobic
world. We are accustomed to dealing with
cynics who are fond of telling us that
there is no such thing as inorganic agriculture.
However, we keep coming back to the point
that our goal is to minimize our footprint.
We want to feel part of nature, not engaged
in a constant battle against it. This
is an ideological statement, but it's
also the way in which we make our living.
We're not warriors, armed against our
landscape; we're farmers who are negotiating
an exchange which should, in the end,
benefit both us and our environment. It's
as simple and as complicated as that. |
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