Our Farming Methods

So what do we do as organic/biodynamic viticulturalists to provide nutrients to our vineyards? We start with feeding the soil organic matter. Each fall after harvest and the first good rains we plant nitrogen fixing cover crop seeds in every other row over at least one third of the vineyard. These seeds are legumes like vetch, bell beans, field peas, clovers, etc. which grow massive amounts of organic matter both above and below the ground and at the same time fix nitrogen from the atmosphere through a bacteria called Rhizobium which lives in nodules on the roots of these legumes. In a good winter and spring cover crops can add 100+pounds of soluble nitrogen and 20+ tons of organic matter per acre to the soil. And all this comes from planting about 100 pounds of seed at the right time and letting these plants and bacteria create and harvest the fruits of the sun, the air and the water without any chemicals. We can also add finished compost brought in from off farm and/or made on farm from farm wastes and from the waste stream of society. Properly done organic farming could recycle an incredible amount of societies organic wastes. Organic farming does not allow the use of sewage sludge however. Another method we incorporate is innoculating the soil with beneficial fungi that actually attach themselves to the vine's roots and live in a symbiotic relationship. These endomycorrhizae actually enter the cortex of the roots and then grows outward as microscopic extentions of the roots into the pores of the soil mining nutrients and soil moisture that otherwise would not be found just by the plants normal root hairs. This is soil microbiology at work where life in the soil is enhanced and this enhanced life feeds the vines.

Life isn't so perfect that nothing else is needed from off farm. Sometimes the mineral makeup of the soil may be lacking some element(s) which needs to be brought in and properly applied like in our case Phosphorus in the powdered form of phosphate rock mined as nearby as Idaho or calcium mined within the Sierra Foothills. Harvest after harvest is a form of mining nutrients from your soil and they have to be replaced one way or another. But with a living biologically active soil these minerals can be added successfully in their raw forms saving lots of manufacturing energy too.

Old fashion 'Organic Farming' was stereo-typed as what you don't do but modern 'Organic Agriculture is all about what you do do and how well you understand and work with your soil on your farm. Healthy vines start with healthy soil.

Folks ask if we get less yields than other vineyards. Well the answer is that we do the best we can with the water we have available. Water is the determining factor for us and yield. In average or better rainfall years (40 inches) we produce all the yield we want. But in drought years our well pumping capacity is not endless enough to provide all that the rainfall may not have delivered but we try with drip irrigation. We're flavor farmers not tonnage farmers so quality is number one and quantity is always modest by design.