Because we need to preserve our natural environment and its richness, winemakers are turning to new innovative practices to treat diseases, but also to take care of the soils of their vineyards. Applied to animal health, homeopathy is also transposed to plants. And the results are promising.
Homeopathy, a reponse to vineyard diseases
For two years now, an agronomist has discovered the effectiveness of homeopathy associated with plant aspirin contained in white willow, for the treatment of vineyard diseases such as blight or powdery mildew, which damage hundreds of hectares of French vineyards each year.
Homeopathy can also help prevent periods of freezing. The treatment is simple: when the vineyard sees a frost coming, it sprays its vines with the appropriate homeopathic treatment, early in the morning or at night, when the leaves are wet.
The plant is then able to defend itself. This treatment liquefies the sap, thus preventing damaging winter frost attacks. (More details here)
In the spring of 2016, Hertz Emetic, wine producer from Vaucluse, saw the effectiveness of this treatment applied on his vines, just before the frost hit: “The leaves are frost scorched. Normally, when there’s a frost, there’s nothing but shoots, you have no fruit. However, the grapes grew normally afterwards”, he told La Revue Du Vin de France magazine. (Find the full interview here)
Homeopathy promotes soil rebalancing
This treatment should be considered within a more comprehensive approach to soil rebalancing, as diseases first affect organisms that are unbalanced by deficiencies or saturated by elements.
Therefore, for long-term action, the vineyard’s treatment also involves treating the soil. Tended to in this way, the soil will be able to offer the plants its richness.
Agronomist Bernard Lachaise adds: “the soil first needs to be rebalanced by a natural conditioner. This attracts earth worms that aerate the ground. Then, a preventive health treatment can be applied. But by balancing the soil, I reduce the need for plant protection products by 60%, because the plant is then able to defend itself”. The use of homeopathy can therefore reduce the use of plant protection products.
