Description of the Business As Usual (BAU)
The general soil management in vineyard is conventional tillage to control competitive weeds. Sometimes the soil management is bare soil with herbicides, which can be combined with minimum tillage. This system avoids leaving any vegetation in the inter-row to reduce water consumption and competition with the vines.
Description of the system change
Groundcovers (the term ‘cover crops’ in woody crop is also Groundcovers (the term cover crops is also commonly used in the literature for woody crops) consist of maintaining vegetation between vine rows to provide permanent soil cover throughout the season. Groundcovers may consist of spontaneous natural vegetation or be established through sowing. Alternatively, biomass materials such as chopped pruning residues or fallen leaves may be used as mulch, covering at least 30% of the soil surface.
In some situations, the soil seed bank may be limited, particularly where pre-emergence herbicides have been used under the Business As Usual (BAU) management system. In such cases, sowing groundcover species is recommended. To promote natural reseeding, at least one vegetation strip should be maintained until seed set. However, groundcover establishment should be monitored, as species differ considerably in their capacity for self-reseeding.
Groundcovers require management to avoid excessive competition with the vines for water and nutrients. Control can be achieved through mowing, herbicide application, or grazing. The timing and frequency of these operations depend on weather conditions and groundcover growth, and more than one control operation may be required during the season.
The weed control in the vine row should be conducted as BAU. Herbicide control is the common system, applied with a sprayer, with the central nozzles locked to keep the groundcover in the inter-row. Other strategies are also common, such as mowing with an adapter mower, using a hand brush cutter, or grazing. An inter-vine mower/blade is also used to remove weeds by mowing or tilling the crop row.