Maintaining soil quality is a key challenge for Mediterranean vineyards, where declining soil organic matter affects both productivity and ecosystem services. This study evaluated how service crops and organic amendments, alone and in combination, influence soil functioning, vine performance, and yield across six commercial vineyards in southern France. Four soil management strategies were tested over three years (2020–21; 2021–22; 2022–23): tillage (T), tillage + amendment (TA), service crop (C), and service crop + amendment (CA). Soil organic matter fractions, microbial biomass, mineralisation rates, and mineral nitrogen were measured, alongside vine growth, yield, and berry composition. Combining service crops and organic amendments (CA) consistently enhanced particulate organic matter (up to 0.45%), microbial biomass (up to 70 mg/kg), and mineralisation rates (above 300 mg kg⁻¹ ), suggesting strong combined effect on soil biogeochemical processes. Mineral-associated organic matter was less responsive, reflecting slower turnover. Increased microbial activity under CA was associated with higher organic inputs. Vine yield (2.18–3.48 kg per vine) and cluster number were mainly driven by interannual climatic variability, with no negative effects of soil management. Vine vigor was temporarily reduced during the first dry year, and grape nitrogen status (YAN) was slightly lower with service crops.These results show that interactions between soil management practices enhance soil functioning and nutrient cycling without compromising production, highlighting their role in supporting ecosystem services and agroecosystem resilience in Mediterranean vineyards.
CONTEXT Viticulture extensively employs pesticides to ensure its yield and quality targets. Vineyards are often characterised by low biodiversity and limited use of agroecological practices. The long-term sustainability of viticulture is dependent on the reduction of pesticide use. Designing and assessing innovative agroecological vineyards is a relevant approach to achieve this objective of french policies. OBJECTIVES The objectives of the study are: i) to develop a participatory method of cropping system prototyping to meet the agroecological challenges and particularly the reduction in pesticide use, ii) implement this method on grapevine systems at the national scale and iii) assess the agronomical and economical performances of the prototypes. METHODS This study presents an innovative methodology based on the prototyping of grapevine systems (GCS) with a participatory approach for knowledge-sharing. This approach was adapted to suit perennial crops and implemented through the EcoViti network of experimental sites located in six contrasted vineyards in France. The Efficiency-Substitution-Redesign (ESR) framework was used to categorise the 45 vineyard prototypes. Then, a multi-criteria assessment method encompassing agronomic, environmental, and socio-economic aspects was conducted to get a comprehensive analysis of the prototypes. From 2013 to 2018, data were collected to assess the 45 vineyard prototypes. To represent french vineyards, 93% of the vineyard prototypes were implemented on already planted vineyards, incorporating decision support tools, prophylactic practices, and biocontrol levers. And 7% of the vineyard prototypes were based on newly planted vineyards with innovative varieties (resistant to mildews). RESULTS AND CONCLUSION 45 grapevine systems across 27 experimental sites were prototyped with combined agroecological practices. The multi-criteria performance assessment revealed that all agronomic, environmental and socio-economic goals of the ESR rating scale could be attained, ensuring sustainability. Forty-one of the 45 prototypes exhibited a pesticide reduction exceeding 50% on average between 2013 and 2018. Moreover, 40 prototypes successfully met yield and harvest quality objectives, while 92% of the prototypes achieved the targeted workload goals. SIGNIFICANCE This study produced relevant and regionally tailored grapevine systems fitted to reduce significantly pesticide use. Our findings underscore the significance of knowledge-sharing in facilitating the overall redesign process. The vineyard prototypes presented herein are not prescriptive solutions but rather indicative of the avenues through which winegrowers can customise and devise their unique pathways of agroecological transition for their vineyard.
Decision Support Systems (DSS) with embedded best management practices help reduce pesticide use. However, costly experimentation is necessary to learn about the quality of their data processing and recommendation models. We study farmers’ choices to try such a DSS. Due to order effects, learning can be inefficient and stop after inadequate recommendations, leading to crop losses. Subsidizing crop insurance conditional on DSS use is a cost-effective policy to foster experimentation. A 4-year living lab on-farm experiment involving French wine cooperatives, an insurer, and researchers supports our theoretical results on learning dynamics and provides additional insight into information requirements for subsidized green insurance.
Nous avons étudié les communautés microbiennes de parcelles viticoles intégrées à un réseau de surveillance des maladies de la vigne. Nous montrons que plusieurs espèces de champignons et de bactéries sont plus abondantes dans les feuilles et le sol des parcelles historiquement peu impactées par le mildiou, une maladie causée par l’oomycète Plasmopara viticola. Ces microorganismes constituent des candidats prometteurs pour la conception de consortia microbiens de lutte biologique contre le mildiou.
In this study, we demonstrate that Vitis cryptic virus (VCV), one of the many viruses that infect grapevines, is transmitted by both gametes. Regardless of the infected parent being used as the male or female virus source in crosses, VCV was detected in all eight interspecific progenies tested. Interestingly, except for a single mutation, all VCV sequences obtained from the different hybrids display 100% identity to either RNA1 or RNA2 in the parental vines. In addition, we confirmed a close relationship between the virus and wild Vitis species from Asia or the Americas, where the virus has been originally characterized and reported by transcriptomic datamining. Following a phylogenetic analysis, we identified clustering of sequences underlining a potential co-evolution pattern between some VCV genotypes and specific Vitis subspecies.
