Starting the year with webinars
The wineries and estates that are following us know very well that for us it’s very important to study and share technical aspects, because only in this way we create a basis of a fruitful collaboration. Every year we organize training courses, but also conferences to offer to participants more technical and scientific knowledge on current arguments, as we did in our last cycle of conferences about Soil, Environment and Agriculture in Montalcino. Unfortunately, the pandemic didn’t permit us to organize conferences or courses this year life, but thanks to Vinnatur and also to the project TIGESVI we could start this year even with interesting webinars of which we want to give you some details:
The webinars of Vinnatur
In the meetings we addressed the arguments of soil fertility, the harmony between insects and the plants, and we spoke about our agronomic evaluation sheet of the vineyard. During the webinars, Vitenova’s team was always present: first of all Stefano Zaninotti spoke about “Reflections on organic matter and soil fertility”, then he was followed by our entomologist Costanza Uboni that spoke about insects in the vineyards of Vinnatur and our botanic Cristiano Francescato reflected about the questions of which are the real spontaneous plants by proposing a comparison between neophytes and archaeophytes. Of course, we couldn’t miss the presentation of Stefano Amadeo about the agronomic evaluation sheet of the vineyard. At the end, Giacomo Nunin spoke about some extractions of his thesis on “Influence of various sulfur-based formulations on phytophages of the vine and how to manage the secondary effects of sulfur on the main insects of the vineyard”. In his presentation he specified that any defense strategy adopted for crop protection, even if carefully planned, can lead to unwanted negative side effects, which can result in loss of biodiversity and disruption of the complex biological balances between living organisms, which are difficult to restore in the short term. His study evaluated the influence of various sulfur-based formulations, with different persistence and readiness of action, on some phytophages of the vine and their natural enemies.
The webinar of the project TIGESVI
At the end of January during the webinar with the theme “Innovative techniques of soil management in the vineyards and their influence on the soil biodiversity and fertility” Stefano Amadeo spoke about the importance and the effects of temporary or permanent grassing in the vineyards. Cristiano Francescato followed his presentation speaking about botanical reliefs. His presentation included a description of vegetation monitoring, the indicators used for the evaluations and some initial results of the ongoing project.