My guest for this episode is Laurel Marcus.

Laurel is the Executive Director of the California Land Stewardship Institute based in Napa, California, which administers the Fish Friendly Farming and Climate Adaptation Certifications for vineyards and other farmers.

Among her many responsibilities, Laurel works with farmers to conduct studies and gather data on farming practices that prevent erosion, preserve soil moisture, increase soil organic matter, and sequester carbon. Her findings provide some conclusive evidence about best practices, as well as eliminate green washing and carbon washing by showing that there are nuances and conditional dependencies for almost every scenario.

Some of the important things we discuss include how soil type and conditions, as well as the type of soil microbe populations, can impact carbon sequestration. And we discuss her findings about how dry farming and no-till systems affect these conditions, as well as some of the realities and misunderstandings about competition between cover crops and vines.

Also, Laurel digs into the seldom discussed topic of how the use of mineral nitrogen, rather than compost, and soil conditions can increase the production of nitrous oxide – the most potent  greenhouse gas… about 300 times more potent than carbon dioxide.

This is an incredibly information rich interview and provides many practical resources – including funding resources – for how to do wine better. Laurel shows how careful we have to be, in the frenzy to do good, to not think that there are one size fits every situation bumper sticker solutions to our problems. This conversation has inspired me to look even more deeply at these issues, and I hope it does the same for you.

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Thank you!

Sponsor:

https://www.centralaswine.com/

Show links:

https://www.fishfriendlyfarming.org/

https://www.cdfa.ca.gov/healthysoils/