“A soil with cover crops is a thriving soil”, claims Konrad Schreiber, staunch advocate of grass cover

A bare soil is a doomed soil, a soil with cover crops is a thriving soil”. Konrad Schreiber’s maxim sums up his call to use cover crops, to promote “more life and fertility”. “Reverting to more plants and avoiding tillage leads to an increase in biological complexity. Soil activity helps make it fertile by recycling organic matter. Leave your soil alone, and let the plants do the work”, explained the independent agronomist at the national independent winegrowers’ convention in Touraine at the end of March, where the focus was on agro-ecology.

Schreiber specialises in “living soils” and is the co-founder of Ver de Terre Production (literally earthworm production), an education organisation where he delivers advice for conservation farming. He detailed his recommendations for between the vine rows for independent winegrowers, advising them to sow cover crops “as soon as the harvest is finished”, using legumes (particularly faba beans) and organic fertiliser. “The cover crops form a bedding which produces fusarium, an anti-mildew agent”, said Schreiber, who advises growers to cover all the rows and keep the crops under control using a roller. As for the soil ridge, “applying a little glyphosate is better than ploughing it! You can use brushes though and wear down the grass a little but without ploughing the soil, which destroys the soil, and cash-flow! Be vine growers who nurture their soils and don’t exploit them!”

Schreiber admited though that phasing out tillage can lead to compaction and yield loss after five years. “But there are techniques out there to overcome ‘dearth years’ successfully”, claimed the agronomist. “You can use bacteria to decompact the soil, help vines by using biostimulants – silica to strengthen immunity and plant cell walls, or trace elements – and foliar fertilisers. The right fertilisation must be used because it takes vines 3 to 4 years to adapt to cover crops and the competition with them”.