An excellent view on biodynamics

August 5, 2009

Biodynamics. Like it, love it, despise it, laugh at it, whatever, it’s a very hot topic amongst serious grape growers/producers. Biodynamics is increasingly viewed as the ultimate in ‘green’ farming, giving the ultimate in environmental credibility to whoever proclaims it as gospel.

The problem is that Biodynamics, due to the fact it all revolves around the teachings of a very eccentric & unusual guy, is weird. Weird in the way that it embraces spirituality and mysticism and transposes this into the very practical and pragmatic methodologies of agriculture. Methodologies that are based upon science, experience and ‘give us a look’ pragmatism. Practices that revolve around both time honoured, well tested ideas as well as modern scientific & technological advances.

As a result, Biodynamics, even if it could produce paradigm shifting results, is viewed largely with scepticism. And the most severe scepticism is reserved for two of (arguably) its most central themes – the Biodynamic Calendar (root day anyone) & the preparations-buried-in-cowhorns.

It seems, however, that some of the exponents of a full Biodynamic regime do understand how weird these elements are. One of those disciples is Nigel Greening, of glorious Central Otago winery Felton Road, and here is a small article that I really liked, which takes a refreshingly normal view of the extremes of Biodynamics.

Read it here

Biodynamics, Wine

Andrew Graham was once voted the 23rd most trusted wine critic on the planet. A WCA Journalism Young Gun now old hack with 25yrs as a buyer, judge, journalist, marketer and too much more.

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13 responses to “An excellent view on biodynamics”

Jeremy Pringle

August 5, 2009 at 9:56 pm

Rigorous intellectual contextualisation of Bd without making fun of it. Love it. Where it's at.

cheers
j

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Stuart Gilchrist

August 5, 2009 at 11:01 pm

The BD debate will go on forever simply because it would be impossible to do properly controlled experiments.
To implement BD, a grower has to go completely organic. So it would never be possible to measure the effectiveness of BD in the absence of organic farming. Also, anyone committed enough to go BD is already interested/involved in their vineyards to a greater extent than usual. Their vineyards are likely to benefit from numerous small inputs that they wouldn't even bother commenting on. I think BD takes a lot of the credit due to simple organic farming.

In the NZ context, by far the biggest influence on agriculture was the importation of the european earthworm. A huge effect at little cost, with a sound scientific explanation.

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Andrew Graham

August 5, 2009 at 11:24 pm

Good point re the small inputs.

By having to obey the rigours of the BD process, growers must (naturally) spend more time in the vineyard, and more time in the vineyard inarguably leads to better grapes (in my opinion).

I'm still waiting (and its probably not going to happen, or at least get publicised) for a grower to split a vineyard in half (without prejudicing either side) and treat one side biodynamically, and the other side organically. When the BD preperations are put on one side, the organic side gets a microbiologically rich fertiliser (buried perhaps, for consistency).

I'd argue that the results would show minimal, if any difference between the BD side and the organic side, making you question the significance of BD at all.

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Andrew Graham

August 5, 2009 at 11:36 pm

Oh and I would also add that whilst I am sceptical of some elements of BD itself, I would argue that it produces better quality wines. Not better than a similarly well kept organic vineyard though.

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Jeremy Pringle

August 6, 2009 at 1:06 am

Andrew, are you aware of the following?(sorry to quote myself, don't have a link and am unsure on legalities of quoting Australian Viticulture Magazine)-

"Looking forward to the results of Luke Johnston's PhD- explores Bd with the help of Melissa Brown of Gemtree and Julian Castagna of Castagna (who'd thunk?)- 3 vineyards, 8 rows adjacent, treated using low input conventional, high input conventional, organic and biodynamic approaches. Methodology looks sound, check most recent Australian Viticulture Magazine or it may be on the net if your interested. It won't "prove" anything but it seems to me to be the next step in understanding Bd possibilities after Paxton got the ball rolling."

I reckon it will shed more light on things, although I am in basic agreement with yourself & Stuart re comments above.

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Andrew Graham

August 6, 2009 at 1:16 am

And I thought it would never happen!

Did they say when Luke's phD was going to be published? Which edition of Australian Viticulture was it?

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Jeremy Pringle

August 6, 2009 at 1:25 am

It's page 41-43 of May/June 2009 issue. Can't see a mention of publication date but the trials will run over 3 years, which indicates to me they are getting serious about it.

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Stuart Gilchrist

August 6, 2009 at 2:45 am

There have been a couple of studies already published. Probst et al 2008 in Biology and Fertility of Soils vol 44 p. 443 and Reeve et al 2005 in American Journal of Enology and Viticulture vol 56 p 367-376. The second is an interesting example of how these things are reported. Basically, they compared replicate plots within a 5ha commercial merlot vineyard over 4 years. Sounds promising.
In the abstract (executive summary), they say that in one year only (2003) they found that BD grapes had “significantly higher” Brix and “notably higher” phenols (despite it not being statistically significant!)
But when you actually read the text of the article, they say that both these differences were “of small and doubtful significance”. The actual numbers were for Brix 25.88 vs 25.55 and for total phenols 3529 vs 3440. Also, in the other 3 years of the trial, no differences were found in anything they measured. Hard to claim much on that basis.

Now, I’m sure you’ll get pro-BD people quoting the abstract and you’ll get the agnostics quoting the actual text, both claiming ‘scientific support” for their side.

In the Probst article, they compared different vineyards. However, it seems that the long term history of their different vineyard sites i.e. before the experiments began, affected the results more than the BD efforts.

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Anonymous

August 6, 2009 at 3:21 am

What people tend to forget is that "not doing anything" is as much a management choice in vineyards as is adding fertiliser (whether it is inorganic, organic or biodynamic). The second point is that people who are involved in primary production need to keep busy. So, whether its a grazier, pastoralist, horticulturist or viticulturist you are conditioned to turn over/add something/spray or otherwise work up the soil.

Sometimes the "doing nothing" option is the best path to take, especially as far as fertiliser is concerned. Grapevines are essentially scavengers that require less nutrient additions than many crops. Excess nutrition creates unwanted growth, potentially increasing fruit shading/disease/crop load issues. So if you are growing vines in soils already well supplied with nutrients and you add big doses of inorganic fertiliser you may downgrade fruit quality.

But if you go biodynamic you will not be adding those big doses. So the biodynamic approach might not be doing anything to your soils but that could be the best thing for your site (by not overloading with nutrients).

In other words, the not doing anything approach is often as good as any but making biodynamic brews keeps our primary producer busy.

And because you have to be a workaholic or mad (or both) to be a primary producer this will suit him/her just fine.

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Jeremy Pringle

August 6, 2009 at 4:48 am

Like this thread. Intelligence and debate. No tantrums & affront. Need more of it.

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Anonymous

August 6, 2009 at 11:03 am

BD from a viticultural industry view is looked upon as BS – It is actually quite unsustainable in high summer rainfall areas, with most grape varieties. – Most people adopting BD are in drier growing areas of Aus. As a viticultural agronomist and grapegrower i have seen a lot of disasters and highly diseased fruit grown using BD (note i have also seen it with conventional programs poorly applied). Max is a big fan of BD but i dont think he fully comprehends the growing side of BD. Try organising your vineyard operations to lunar cycles where machines not involved = impossible

cheers Tim

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Jeremy Pringle

August 6, 2009 at 10:17 pm

Hmm, was told similar things by a prominent winemaker in Sunbury

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Tim Cohen

August 14, 2009 at 1:07 pm

good in theory, not so good following the whole holistic luna pattern palava.
yet individual vineyards can benefit from the 500 series of sprays at appropriate stages in growing season.

Cheerio
Tim

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