In southern Bolivia, smallholder farms maintain a highly specific traditional agroforestry viticulture. In these farming systems, the various cropping and livestock activities and their interactions with viticulture were identified, the benefits of their diversity to the farm households were assessed, and the most profitable forms of diversity were identified. Surveys and participatory workshops were organized to draw up a typology of farms and evaluate their main potential and limitations. Production of grapes, vegetables, fruits and fodder, animal husbandry, and processing of wine and brandy (singani) coexisted in varying proportions. Two types of farms generated the highest gross income. Type Div (Diversified) exhibited balanced cropping and livestock activities and strong interactions among them, with the highest proportion of fertilizers provided by manure, and animal feed provided by fodder crops and crop residues. Type Proc (Processing) was the most involved in the production of wine and singani, including grapes purchased from other producers. In contrast, type HortiViti (Horticulture and Viticulture) invested more in horticulture and suffered from poor market conditions. Farmers saw the traditional character and diversity of their farming systems as an opportunity, but suffered from competition with high-input farming systems and lack of technical support.

Strategic design decisions regarding wine label, plant material, vine age renewal, and planting choices are crucial for winegrowers when planning their future vineyards that will influence grapevine yield in the long term. However, the repercussions of these choices have mostly been studied in experimental vineyards and small datasets. Therefore, we are missing a comprehensive analysis of a large diversity of vineyard situations that can robustly provide avenues for improving vineyard design and ensure sustainable wine production. To fill this research gap, we analyzed a big sample of vineyards using random plot data (n = 3507) from surveys conducted among winegrowers of the Languedoc-Roussillon viticultural region. We carried out a data analysis that focused on examining the relationship between grapevine yield and (i) diverse vineyard management frameworks (wine label, organic management, irrigation), (ii) plant material (varieties, rootstocks), and (iii) planting choices (planting density, vine age as a proxy for vine lifespan and renewal). Our findings indicate that wine label greatly affected yield; in conjunction with vine age, they explained up to 40

In vineyards, annual farming practices are essential for fully understanding all factors influencing grapevine yield gaps. However, the comprehensive impact of these decisions on grapevine yield at a large scale remains relatively unexplored. Gaining a deeper understanding of how these factors influence yield could serve as a key strategy for mitigating yield losses, particularly those exacerbated by climate change, thereby supporting sustainable wine production. In this study, we used random plot data from surveys conducted among winegrowers in the Languedoc-Roussillon wine region over four different years (n = 3,507). Our analysis aimed to explore the relationships between grapevine yield gaps and: 1) environmental and pest hazards; 2) plant protection management practices; 3) soil surface management practices; and 4) fertilisation practices. We employed a combination of graphical observations and statistical tests to assess the influence of these factors on grapevine yield. Our findings revealed that 58 % of the winegrowers did not achieve their target yields, with important yield gaps of around 32 % yield reduction on average. Plots suffering from climatic and pest hazards during the surveyed year showed important yield gaps across various management options. Considering grapevine protection, only very low levels of TFI (Treatment Frequency Index) resulted in yield gaps of around 10-20 % reduction, but no yield differences were found for other TFI levels. As high TFI was not necessarily associated with high pest pressure in the observed dataset, a substantial margin for pesticide reduction remains possible without yield losses. Cover crop management did not show significant yield gaps. Lower yields, by 10 %, were observed in non-fertilised PGI (Protected Geographical Indication) plots. However, no yield differences in relation to fertilisation were found in PDO (Protected Designation of Origin) wine plots, probably due to a lower level of nutrient extraction. Our results evidenced that when key annual farming practices were implemented, they could be involved in significant yield gaps, with around 10-20 % yield losses. Overall, our study highlights the importance of conducting large-scale and real-world data analysis at the regional level to evaluate grapevine yield gaps.

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There is a crucial need for tools to help researchers, technicians and farmers designing sustainable agroecosystems based on agroecology Indeed, such agroecosystems are inherently complex and their design requires to integrate various data and unstabilised scientific knowledge. In this paper, we consider the issue of selecting service plant species according to their potential to provide ecosystem services. To tackle that issue, we adopt an approach based both on a formalized representation of domain knowledge, which enables reasoning, and on the exploitation of available data, collected independently of the targeted application. More specifically, we rely on the one hand on recent scientific results in agronomy linking functional traits (i.e., measurable characteristics of plant species) to ecosystem services, and on the other hand on data about functional traits collected by the research community in ecology. The architecture of our system is inspired by the ontology-based data access paradigm, which allows to combine data and knowledge in a principled way. We provide a methodology to acquire scientific knowledge in the form of diagrams linked to data sources, as well as a formalization in a logical rule-based language. Importantly, our rules are independent from specific diagrams and data, to ensure genericity and facilitate the evolution of the system. We detail the construction of a knowledge base devoted to vine grassing, i.e., installing herbaceous service plants in vineyards, and present an evaluation of the system’s results on this use case. We finally discuss the lessons learned and further challenges to be met.

CONTEXT: Farmers in the MENA (Middle East and North Africa) region face several interrelated challenges including natural resource depletion, low crop productivity, and food and nutrition insecurity. To address some of these challenges, governments are considering different incentives to increase crop production. However, incentives often entail trade-offs and may have diverging effects on economic, social, and environmental sustainability.OBJECTIVES: This study assessed the ex-ante effects of incentives targeted towards increasing crop production on the production and consumption decisions of farm households on the Salss plain of northern Morocco.METHODS: The assessment was conducted with a dynamic, intertemporal farm household model that simulates farm production and food consumption decisions. The model was calibrated using survey data from 85 farm households for 2014. Four scenarios were codesigned with local stakeholders and then simulated over a continuous 15-year period to capture rainfall variability: (1) increased availability of annual groundwater for irrigated cropping from 31 m3 ha-1 to 215 m3 ha-1, (2) a 15% increase in grain prices for cereals and legumes, (3) introduced drought tolerant crop varieties, and (4) a fourth scenario that combines all factors in the above three scenarios.RESULTS AND DISCUSSION: Our results showed that regardless of the scenario, the area of cereals and legumes cultivated only slightly changed compared to the Baseline scenario. However, according to the scenarios tested, the total production of cereals increased by 10% to 21% and of legumes increased by 2% to 9%. This production increase is the direct consequence of increased crop yields due to an intensification of crop production methods. The incentives increased the consumption of cereals and legumes by up to 43%. This increase was mainly due to a shift from grain to vegetable production that increases cash income, resulting in more food purchases from the market while consumption from own production dropped by up to 53%. The average increase in crop income was 14% in scenarios 1-3 and 28% in scenario 4. However, increased income had ramifications for nature resource stocks, with irrigation water use from groundwater increasing by 593% in the Water scenario and 320% in the combined scenario, relative to the Baseline scenario. In the Water scenario, incomes increased by 15% and nitrogen leached increased by 36%, highlighting the trade-off between economic and environmental sustainability.SIGNIFICANCE: These results show the challenges in obtaining acceptable compromises between the three sustainability pillars as the scenarios increased income but also led to increased groundwater extraction and nitrate leaching.

Grapevine decline, a major global viticulture issue, is defined as a multi-year decrease in vine productivity and/or increase in vine mortality. Although grapevine trunk diseases are one of the most-studied causes, decline is multifactorial and associated with more than 70 factors, including abiotic and biotic hazards. With so many factors to consider, the phenomenon difficult to understand, especially for winegrowers. Our study aims to make it easier to determine and assess grapevine decline by focusing on three key indicators: yield, mortality and vegetative vigour. We investigated the relationships between these indicators from both a temporal and spatial perspective to propose a set of diagnostic indicators. Thus, we conducted a winegrowers’ survey, an historical analysis of grapevine decline and field measurements of the abovementioned indicators on plot networks in three major French winegrowing regions (see graphical abstract): Bordeaux, Cognac and Languedoc. We found that farmers’ perceptions of decline were consistent with an objective characterisation of decline based on in-field measurements of the indicators. Although vine mortality progressively spread over the years, neither the survey nor the historical analysis showed a direct link between decline and yield loss. Rather, large yearly fluctuations in yield, which did not systematically decrease over time, account for this finding. As a result, the mortality rate and the normalised difference vegetation index (NDVI) indicators were shown to be earlier indicators of grapevine decline than yield loss (yield achievement ratio, YAR). We performed a multifactorial analysis of the overall data set from the three regions to deepen our understanding of the variety of declining situations and the underlying environmental and management factors contributing to decline. Finally, two ground-based NDVI indicators and an image-analysis methodology using aerial photographs were proposed as easy-to-obtain indicators of grapevine decline. NDVI indicators were linearly correlated to both YAR and mortality rate. This study provides a better understanding and promising tools for early diagnosis of grapevine decline.

Similar to the forestry industry, the winegrowing sector has experienced a grapevine decline phenomenon over the last twenty years, so that decline is now considered an increasingly widespread problem in many vineyards across the world (De la Fuente et al., 2016). In this work, the relationships between yield, mortality and vegetative vigour were investigated, in both temporal and spatial terms, to identify early diagnosis indicators of vine decline.

Agroecosystems are facing new challenges in the context of a growing and increasingly interconnected human population, and a paradigm shift is needed to successfully address the many complex questions that these challenges will generate. The transition to providing multiple services within an agroecosystem is a starting point for heightened multifunctionality, however, there is still hesitation among stakeholders about moving towards multi-service systems, largely because of the lack of knowledge linking productivity and multifunctionality. We reason that much of this reticence could be overcome through a better understanding of stakeholder re-quirements and innovative transdisciplinary research extended in the dimensions of time and space. We assembled experts in France to identify priority research questions for co-constructing projects with stakeholders. We identified 18 key questions, as well as the obstacles that hinder their resolution and propose potential so-lutions for tackling these obstacles. We illustrate that research into agroecosystem multifunctionality and service production must be a hugely collaborative effort and needs to integrate knowledge from different sectors and communities. Promoting dialogue, standardization and data-sharing would enhance transdisciplinary progress. Biodiversity is highlighted as a key factor to explore and incorporate into modelling approaches, but major advances must be made in the understanding of dynamic changes in the biodiversity-function-service nexus across landscapes. Resolving these research questions will allow us to translate knowledge into decision objec-tives, identify adaptation and tipping points in agroecosystems and develop social-ecological economic pathways that are adaptive over time.

Abstract In vineyards, decisions regarding plant material and plantation practices are crucial for winegrowers when planning future vine plots. These choices often navigate within the bounds set by wine labels and are contingent upon a spectrum of management options. However, the comprehensive influence of these decisions on grapevine yield at a large scale remains a relatively unexplored domain. A deeper understanding of how plant material and planting strategies impact grapevine yield stands as a potential avenue for mitigating yield losses, especially exacerbated by the repercussions of climate change, thereby ensuring sustainable wine production. In this study, we employed random plot data from national surveys conducted among winegrowers in the Languedoc-Roussillon viticultural region (n = 3507). Our analysis focused on examining the relationship between grapevine yield and: i. plant material (varieties, rootstocks); ii. plantation practices (planting density, vine age); considering diverse vineyard management approaches (wine label, organic management, irrigation). Data analysis encompassed graphical observations, statistical tests, and modeling to evaluate the impact of these factors on grapevine yield. Our findings indicate that most cultivated varieties exhibited similar yield levels for the same type of wine label. Notably, SO4 rootstock displayed the best yield performance across multiple cultivated varieties. The combined influence of vine age and wine label explained up to 40% of the total yield variance. We observed a minor adverse effect of vine aging on grapevine yield, particularly in highly productive vineyards under the PGI wine label. However, the impact of vine age on yield in PDO wine plots was almost negligible. Organic management did also demonstrate an influence on yield. Unexpectedly, planting density did not significantly affect yield. These results underscore the significance of conducting real winegrowers' big data analysis at a regional level, particularly in connection with wine label and management choices.

Viticulture involves high pesticide use. While methods to reduce this use have been proposed by researchers, they have not yet been widely implemented by winegrowers. Involving winegrowers in the participatory design of new management strategies could encourage the adoption of these methods to reduce pesticide use. In this study, we designed and tested a participatory approach to reducing pesticide use that would be acceptable to winegrowers from a South-Western cooperative (i.e., not ‘pioneering’ winegrowers). The approach was composed of three main steps: A) co-design of the management strategies, B) implementation of the management strategies, and C) co-evaluation of the performances of the implemented management strategies. Winegrowers, researchers, advisors and engineers were involved in the study. The application of this participatory approach enabled the co-design and testing of two management strategies: IPM for Integrated Pest Management [50% reduction of pesticide treatment frequency index (TFI) as compared to the French High Environmental Value reference (HEV)], and ORG2kgCo for organic farming system with a maximum of 2 kg of copper/ha/year. These two management strategies were implemented by 11 winegrowers in three vineyards in South- Western France. In both management strategies, two main technical levers were selected to reduce pesticide use: a Decision Support System to optimise the use and substitution of pesticides by biocontrol products. The implementation of the IPM management strategy resulted in a significant reduction of TFI (from -14% to -57%, with an average of -25%, for all pesticides combined) compared to HEV, and the winegrowers who tested ORG2kgCo managed to not exceed the limit of 2 kg of copper per year. This original participatory approach, combining co-design workshops, on-farm experimentation and co-evaluation workshops, highlighted the benefits of involving winegrowers in the reduction of pesticide use.

New winegrower and resource datasets appear to be a great opportunity to understand which are the environmental factors involved in grapevine yield spatially. Such analysis can help regional label managers and winegrowers for the conception of local adaptation strategies to climate change, reducing yield gaps. In the present study, we aggregated yield a big dataset obtained from Pays d’Oc winegrowers (n = 96677) between 2010 and 2018 at the municipality level (n = 606), located in the Languedoc-Roussillon region, in the South of France. We used a backward stepwise model selection process using linear mixed-effect models to discriminate and select significant indicators capable of estimating grapevine yield at the municipality level, these include: Soil Available Water Capacity (SAWC), soil pH, Huglin Index, the Climate Dryness Index, the number of Very Hot Days and Days of Frost. We then determined spatial zones by creating clusters of municipalities with similar soil and climate characteristics. The seven zones presented two marked yield levels. Yet, all zones had municipalities with both high yield and high yield gaps. On each zone, grapevine yield was found to be driven by a combination of climate and soil factors, rather than just by a single environmental factor. Environmental factors at this scale largely explained yield variability across the municipalities, but they were not performant in terms of annual yield prediction. Further research is required on the interactions between environmental factors, plant material and farming practices.

Often unable to fulfill theoretical production potentials and to obtain the maximum yields set by wine quality labels, many vineyards and cellars need to solve the issue of so-called grapevine yield gaps in order to assure their durability. These yield gaps particularly occur in Mediterranean wine regions, where extreme events have intensified because of climate change. Yield gaps at the regional level have been widely studied in arable crops using big datasets, but much less so in perennial crops, such as grapevine. Understanding the environmental factors involved in yield gaps, such as those linked to climate and soil, is the first step in grapevine yield gap analysis. At a regional scale, there are numerous studies on ‘terroir’ linked to wine typicity and quality; however, none have classified spatial zones based on environmental factors identified as being involved in grapevine yield. In the present study, we aggregated into one big dataset information obtained from producers at the municipality level in the wine region Languedoc-Roussillon (South of France) between 2010 and 2018. We used a backward stepwise model selection process using linear mixed-effect models to discriminate and select the statistically significant indicators capable of estimating grapevine yield at the municipality level. We then determined spatial zones by using the selected indicators to create clusters of municipalities with similar soil and climate characteristics. Finally, we analysed the indicators of each zone related to the grapevine yield gap, as well as the variations among the grapevine varieties in the zones. Our selection process evidenced 6 factors that could explain annual grapevine yield annually (R2 = 0.112) and average yield for the whole period (R2 = 0.546): Soil Available Water Capacity (SAWC), soil pH, Huglin Index, the Climate Dryness Index, the number of Very Hot Days and Days of Frost. The clustering results show seven different zones with two marked yield gap levels, although all the zones had municipalities with no or high yield gaps. On each zone, grapevine yield was found to be driven by a combination of climate and soil factors, rather than by a single environmental factor. The white wine varieties showed larger yield gaps than the red and rosé wine varieties. Environmental factors at this scale largely explained yield variability across the municipalities, but they were not performant in terms of annual yield prediction. Further research is required on the interactions between environmental variables and plant material and farming practices, as well as on vineyard strategies, which also play an important role in grapevine yield gaps at vineyard and regional scale.

In the south of Bolivia, a group of traditional wine growers are distinguished by the cultivation of grapevines on native trees that serve as tutors. These growers currently represent one of the few examples of agroforestry vineyards in the world. They offer an opportunity to analyze the structure and management of these cropping systems, and to identify the ecosystem services provided by the combination of grapevines that are trained on trees. We characterize 29 agroforestry vineyards located in three high valleys in southern Bolivia, describing the main farm features, the structure and management of the vineyards, and the advantages of on-tree vine staking as recorded by the farmers. Farms were small (2.2 ha on average), with about half viticulture and half other crops and forage. The workforce was about half family and half employees. The most commonly used tree species were the molle tree (Schinus molle) and chañar tree (Geoffroea decorticans), and the majority of grape varieties grown were landraces such as “Negra criolla” and “Vicchoqueña.” The main cultivation techniques were pruning of the trees and vines, application of manure more than mineral fertilizers, gravity irrigation, and application of few pesticides. The main services farmers expected from trees were protection against climate hazards and flooding, disease control, maintenance of soil fertility, and higher yields. Agroforestry is a promising option for the agroecological transition of viticulture, which deserves further studies at both plot and farm scales.

CONTEXT: Agricultural systems can provide ecosystem services (ES) beneficial for both the sustainability of farms and the quality of life for humans. Agriculture is regularly criticized for focusing technical management of cropping systems more on production services than on support or regulation services. To achieve the agroecological intensification of cropping systems, a joint provision of multiple ES is required. OBJECTIVE: Our aim was to (i) understand the determinants of the provision of ES and (ii) analyze the relationships between these services in order to (iii) identify agroecological intensification pathways. We focused our study on four ES, which are (1) coffee production, (2) water quality preservation, (3) carbon sequestration and (4) biodiversity conservation, provided by coffee agroforestry systems in a small region in Nicaragua. METHODS: A two-phase sampling scheme was implemented to measure and elucidate the provision of these services. First, we selected a large sample (82 coffee plots) to gain insight into and quantify the four ES. Secondly, we extracted a sub-sample (27 plots) showing variability in the provision of the four ES, to closely examine the determinants of the service most useful to farmers, coffee production. RESULTS AND CONCLUSION: The results showed that carbon sequestration (in average 36 t.haxe213; 1.yrxe213; 1) was not correlated with coffee yield (in average 1127 kg.haxe213; 1.yrxe213; 1) and depended more on the presence of a few big trees in farm plots (O > 0.9 m) than on tree density. Yield increased with tree biodiversity up to a threshold (Shindex = 1.5), after which it clearly declined. The use of the most harmful pesticides to human health at higher doses than recommended did not lead to the highest yields. The most important determinants of coffee production were soil nitrogen content, soil pH, solar radiation, disease and weed incidence. Although reducing the shade tree density increased coffee production, this reduction was not necessarily related to a decrease in shade tree biodiversity and carbon sequestration, or an increase in water contamination potential. A few farmers actually achieved such high joint ES provision, in particular by selecting adequate shade trees grown at moderate densities. SIGNIFICANCE: The novelty of this article lies on an original method that consists in analyzing the ES provided by cropping systems in order to identify management strategies that are effective in providing a higher combined level of ES than those currently provided. We emphasize the importance of linking agricultural practices to the ES delivered, in order to gain an in-depth understanding of which technical levers are positively correlated with the determinants of the expected services.

Farmers constantly adapt cropping systems to meet their needs. Cocoa farming is frequently associated with low incomes and little access to technical innovations for the small farmers and their families who are responsible for most cocoa production around the world. A collaborative approach, including different professionals working in the Dominican cocoa sector, led to the emergence of many technical innovations designed to modify the current agroforestry systems (AFS) in order to increase their overall productivity while maintaining a high level of biodiversity. Two types of original results are presented: (i) the co-design method that combined different participatory tools drawn from the literature and (ii) the results of applying the method for the co-design of complex AFS in four working groups. Compared to current AFS, a first level of innovation that emerged during the workshops involves the diversity and density of associated crops in AFS. The second level of innovation deals with the evolution over time and location of the different species selected for the AFS plots. This participatory work led to the formulation of four AFS prototypes whose crop species and densities follow spatio-temporal dynamics anticipated to be capable of providing better revenues while maintaining a high level of crop biodiversity. The different technical and management innovations of these prototypes are described and discussed. The AFS prototypes resulting from the co-design process will be established on farm to assess their agronomic, ecological and economic performances.

Context: Climate change threatens wine growing systems in varying ways because of their high diversity, even at a local scale. This diversity needs to be considered when designing and assessing adaptation strategies to co-ordinate better with these diverse local conditions.Objective: We developed a participatory modeling approach to (1) design adaptation strategies in a viticultural watershed in southern France, (2) numerically and spatially evaluate their effects under future climatic condi-tions, and (3) discuss the results with stakeholders.Methods: We organized two sets of collective workshops, before and after a simulation phase. During the workshops, we designed four adaptation strategies that correspond to different ways to combine adaptation measures proposed by stakeholders. A spatially explicit model was used to evaluate the effects of six adaptation measures (late varieties, irrigation, reducing canopy size, adjusting cover cropping, reducing density, and shading) at field scale and combinations of them at watershed scale. Simulations were realized under a high emissions climate change scenario RCP 8.5. Model-based evaluations were followed by discussions with stake-holders. The cost-effectiveness of adaptation strategies was estimated at farm scale using an indicator designed by the stakeholders. Results and conclusions: The spatial combination of adaptation measures in a viticultural watershed provided options for adapting wine growing systems to climate change. A delayed harvest strategy with currently available late varieties provided only minimal relief from high temperature during ripening. A water stress limitation strategy would compensate for production losses if disruptive adaptations (e.g., reduced density) were adopted and if more vineyards were irrigated. A relocation strategy would encourage premium wine production in the constrained mountainous areas, where grapevines systems are historically adapted to limited water conditions. A soil improvement strategy was mentioned but not evaluated in the model due to scarce data and literature on the possible improvement of soil water holding capacity.Significance: The sharing of knowledge between researchers, technical experts, and wine growers enabled the construction of a common understanding of the local impacts and adaptation potential to climate change in the watershed. In further research, this knowledge could help decision makers to define pathways for adaptive ac-tions at farm scale.