Sustainable Winegrowing

The number of winery businesses has grown, on average, 4.5% each year for the past five years, with over 7600 wineries currently operating in 2022. Among the dizzying sea of wine options, having a certification differentiates your brand!

Welcome to Marketing Tip Monday with SIP Certified. We know customers are looking for wines labeled as sustainable. While our longer-form episodes help you learn about the latest science and research for the wine industry, these twice-monthly micro podcasts will help you share your dedication to sustainable winegrowing so you can show your customers that you share their values.

Today we look at how adding a certification logo to your label can increase your wine sales.

When wine shoppers pick your bottle from the shelf and see a certification logo like SIP Certified, they can feel good knowing that they are supporting a system of winegrowing that is done with conscious care for the people and the planet.

Consumers are looking for Sustainability

In terms of where consumers believe sustainability is the most important, unsurprisingly, it's the industries that are part of their everyday lives -- especially products as opposed to services.

According to Morning Consult's 2022 Sustainability Report: What Sustainability Means to Consumers, when asked about the importance of sustainability in a variety of industries, over 80% of respondents said it's important in the food and beverage industry.

If you are a SIP Certified wine brand, you fit the ticket! Since you're doing all of the hard work to become certified you can easily take the next step to put the logo on your bottle.

Why Certify Your Wines?

If you're going through the process to certify your vineyard or are sourcing sustainable grapes, you may wonder why you should take the time to add the logo to the label and certify your wines. The answer is simple: consumers seek easy ways to find and identify sustainable wine.

Wine labels are one of the most frequently used sources for identifying sustainable wines -- which makes sense! Unless a consumer knows where you source your fruit or that the vineyard named on your wine label is sustainable, how else would they be able to know that your wine was produced with sustainably grown grapes?

Putting a certification logo on your bottle is the best way to ensure your product can easily be identified as sustainable by consumers when you aren't there to tell them.

Are you eligible to use the sip certified logo on your label?

Any wine made with at least 85% SIP Certified fruit -- estate or purchased -- can bear the SIP Certified seal. All you need to do is complete a Wine Application and send it to a Wine Inspector. The inspection is all done remotely via email exchange of chain of custody documentation.

Visit our Get Certified: Wine page to read more about wine certification, and email [email protected] if you have any questions.

Check out the show notes for links to this article and all of the consumer research resources mentioned and to sign up for our biweekly Marketing Tips newsletter. Until next time, this is Sustainable Winegrowing with the Vineyard Team.

References:

• **SIP Smart Training online course
• Is Wine Certification Worth It?
• Marketing Tips eNewsletter
• SIP Certified
• SIP Certify Your Wines

Think most nematodes are parasitic? Actually, the majority are beneficial and can provide biological control for bacteria, fungi and other nematodes. Deborah Neher, Professor in the Department of Plant and Soil Science at the University of Vermont explains that the name nematode in Latin means roundworm. But do not confuse these worms with the common earthworm. They have a very simple anatomy that is purely dedicated to eating and reproduction. The microscopic, aquatic organisms live in water films that surround soil particles. Nematodes are the most numerous soil-dwelling animal and can live in extreme conditions. Listen in to learn how nematodes fit into a healthy soil system.

References:

• 28: Understanding Soil Health (podcast)
• 72: Soil Microbes and Nutrient Availability (podcast)
• Ecology of Plant and Free-Living Nematodes in Natural and Agricultural Soil
• Neher Lab
• Neher Lab Publications
• Perspectives article that covers history and approach to soil health with research agenda to soil health: Resilient soils for resilient farms: An integrative approach to assess, promote and value soil health for small- and medium-size farms.
• Role of Nematodes in Soil Health and Their Use as Indicators
• SIP Certified
• Soil Builders Module 3d: Compost for Soil Function and Disease Suppression, 9 December 2021. Invited Webinar Presentation (podcast)
• Soil community composition and ecosystem processes: Comparing agricultural ecosystems with natural ecosystems
• Sustainable Ag Expo November 14-16, 2022 | Use code PODCAST for $50 off
• The soil symphony. Interview by Leah Kelleher, 8 August 2020 (podcast)

Get More

Subscribe wherever you listen so you never miss an episode on the latest science and research with the Sustainable Winegrowing Podcast. Since 1994, Vineyard Team has been your resource for workshops and field demonstrations, research, and events dedicated to the stewardship of our natural resources.

Learn more at www.vineyardteam.org.

Transcript

Craig Macmillan 0:00

And with me today is Dr. Deborah Neher. She's a professor at University of Vermont and has done some really, really interesting work on soil health in particular, micro organisms and what role they play. And so today we're gonna talk about nematodes. I'm excited.

Deborah Neher 0:15

Yeah, it's great to be here. nematodes get me excited too. Been working on it for like 30 years now, believe it or not.

Craig Macmillan 0:22

I believe it. First of all, let's drop back a second. And we're talking about healthy soil soil health, the role that these organisms play in that. What is your definition of a healthy soil, I think that's kind of a tough thing.

Deborah Neher 0:33

Sure. And I know everybody has a slightly different version. But just to keep it really short and succinct, it needs to be porous, it needs to be chemically balanced, as well as containing organic matter. Let me just elaborate on those briefly. We need a range of pore sizes in soil to help give it good structure and that also allows for a balance of water and oxygen, so that the plants and the microbes can live and have air to breathe. We need a chemically balanced both the nutrients as well as a pH. And as far as organic matter it plays a number of different roles. It can hold moisture and nutrients kind of like a sponge. And that's also where we have the biological activity happening. And organic matter has negative charges on its surface the nutrients have positive charges so they can attract you know like magnets with opposite charges. You know, organic amendments usually come with microbes as well as nutrients so they're bringing the life into soil and supporting that.

Craig Macmillan 1:31

And speaking of life, that's what a lot of your work has been the the soil microbiome plays a huge role and how that functions obviously and different organisms have different roles. So we have bacteria, fungi, we have protozoa, we have nematodes, am I leaving anybody out I don't want to leave anybody out.

Deborah Neher 1:49

Micro arthropods is another big one like mites is another one.

Craig Macmillan 1:53

Oh, yeah, that's right. When we do we don't talk about that much at least in my experience is the nematode part of it. What exactly is a nematode? First of all.

Deborah Neher 2:01

So the term nematode might be a bit foreign, it is a Latin word. If we translate it into English, it means round worm. And they are different than earthworms. They are different taxonomic phyla, so very different. One thing you will notice when you look at a nematode is it moves very differently than an earthworm. It has kind of a snake like S shaped movement, and that's because it only has longitudinal muscles, so it's not very coordinated. Nematodes are the most numerous of all soil dwelling animals. There's a great quote about how abundant they are. This quote is by a famous nematologist about 100 years ago, his name was Nathan Cobb, and he said, nematodes are so numerous that if you were to zap the earth, and just leave the nematodes representing the structure there, went outer space and looked back, you would be able to see see the Earth and the contours of the earth based on where the nematodes are. If you knew the associations of those nematodes and plants and animals well enough, you'd even be able to tell which plant and animal communities were wher. Back to kind of what they are there, you know, the very minute the soil nematodes are microscopic in size, one millimeter would be a very large one, you'd be able to see that kind of with your naked eye, but we usually have to look at soil nematodes, through a microscope. These tiny round worms, they basically are aquatic organisms, they live in the water films that surround soil particles. So I like to refer to them as the other aquatic organisms. And they're so tiny that they're forced to really navigate within the existing pore structure of soil within those water films. They are different from earthworm. Earthworms can move soil particles, these guys can't. Another kind of interesting thing, if you looked at their anatomy, it's very simple. They basically their whole anatomy is only about getting food and having sex, okay? They don't have any eyes, they don't have any appendages. They're determining where they're going based on kind of touch and smell chemical cues, as I'd like to say they've just got life down to the basics, just eating and having sex. And their whole whole body structure is based on that.

Craig Macmillan 4:28

They are relatively simple. What are some of the major categories of nematodes because there's a huge array of different even beyond genus just types and categories and do all kinds of different things. What are some of the major categories?

Deborah Neher 4:41

Yeah, I like to think about the categories we call them kind of feeding groups or trophic groups would be a way to think about it. Most people when they think of nematodes they automatically think about plant parasites, and that is an important, you know, group of nematodes but that's usually a minority. The majority of nematodes are actually beneficial. And they can be categorized into groups. One group would be bacterial feeding nematodes, another one that feeds on fungi. Another group that's actually predacious. And those can actually feed on protest or other nematodes. So they could have like a biological control component. And then we have some that we call omnivores, meaning they eat a variety of food sources. But those predators and omnivores are kind of higher up on the food chain than those that are feeding on the microbes. So you kind of almost have a whole food web just have nematodes.

Craig Macmillan 5:40

Wow, that's a that's pretty, pretty amazing. They also though, were parasitic to animals, their animal parasitic nematodes as well, right?

Deborah Neher 5:48

Yes, there are animal nematodes. These tend to be much larger than the ones you see in soil. They're not you know, restricted to going between the particles of soil. They're actually in the cavities, you know, the digestive cavities of animals. So examples like intestinal roundworms, pinworms, hookworms, those would be examples of nematodes that can be inside vertebrates, and those are very serious parasites.

Craig Macmillan 6:11

Yeah. And so that kind of where I was going for, which you've been very helpful was it's a type of organism that is incredibly diverse, all aspects of life on Earth are connected to nematode in some fashion. Now going back to soil specifically, so what are the roles that different kinds of nematodes play in the functioning of the healthy soil?

Deborah Neher 6:31

I'd like the fact that you pitch that as what is the function, because this is something I think about is it's really more important thinking function than just the specific organism itself. And that's why I study them. And that two major ecosystem functions in soil one is decomposition. And the other is nutrient cycling. Nematodes are really tightly linked with nutrient cycling, and particularly nitrogen, okay, and they're not feeding on, you know, the decaying organic matter, they're feeding on the microbes right. Their link in with nitrogen cycling is kind of both direct and indirect. Directly, they actually the food they take in any extra nitrogen they have, they excrete it in the form of ammonium as a byproduct. And that happens to be a nutrient or form of nitrogen in that plant can take up. So that's one way. And the second way indirectly is by feeding on bacteria and fungi, they can, you know, decompose the tissues, the body tissues of those microbes. Let me back up one moment, because bacteria and fungi are all especially bacteria, very important in nitrogen cycling, all the different stages. And nematodes can are a predator on those. And when you have a predator on a prey like that, you know, it kind of culls out or removes the sick, the weak, the old and keeps the most active ones going. And it ends up by that grazing activity on those microbes, that it makes nitrogen cycling more efficient, they can release more nitrogen per unit of carbon. So they don't take as much energy to kind of keep this nitrogen cycle going. So they're kind of keeping that bacteria in a healthy state, you know, in terms of their role in nitrogen cycling, but as I mentioned before, they also excrete ammonium. So we've estimated based on in my research that they contribute about eight to 19% of the nitrogen mineralization in soils, which is much higher than it's been reported in the past. So very important.

Craig Macmillan 8:46

That's incredible. And so what they're doing is they're consuming something and they're digesting it. And so it goes, it comes in in one form and leaves in another. Yes, it makes it in a plant available form.

Deborah Neher 9:00

Yeah, so you know, when they're ingesting bacteria, fungi, those are all their proteins and their bodies are comprised of amino acids. And when you digest an amino acid, one of the products is ammonium. And when the nematode gets more nitrogen than it needs for its own maintenance, the excess is then excreted as an ammonium. And that's a form plants can take up.

Craig Macmillan 9:26

And again, like they like that ammonium is going to be in solution in water on a soil particle and a root is going to grab that water and pull it up into the plant.

Deborah Neher 9:37

That's exactly right. Yeah, any nutrients have to be in water solution to be able to be transported into the plant through the roots.

Craig Macmillan 9:46

And this just occurred what are the conditions, soil conditions that promote different types of nematode populations and what are so conditioned that maybe limit them?

Deborah Neher 9:56

So that's a great question. What are the reasons that I got and to study nematodes in the first place is because they are distributed everywhere in all kinds of ecosystems, all types of vegetation. So that by saying they're everywhere means that they can also withstand some extreme conditions. I mean, we find them in extremes for temperature for cold for dry. Some groups of nematodes have an ability to go what they say in a kind of a cryobiotic state, or if it's for dryness and anhydrobiotic state, meaning when it's super dry, they can change into kind of a suspended animation or a dormancy where they can just kind of shut down, they survive, but their metabolism goes way, way down. And they have a way to kind of change their chemistry within their body so that they can stay alive and not damage their tissues. You know, I've studied nematodes in desert soils, where it's 60 degrees Celsius, so like, you know, over well over 100 degrees, and they're hanging out in there. Now, some of them are gonna get triggered into this other stage when it gets harsh. Okay, so one thing that would not be good for nematodes is if you would deplete the oxygen, they do require oxygen for survival. So if you had a situation where it was say flooded, for a long period of time, and all that oxygen got used up, that would be that would be very harmful to nematodes. The other thing that we can see is if you use very intense, general biocides, let's just say application of methyl bromide, for example, that pretty much wipes out everything.

Craig Macmillan 11:38

That'll take care of it. Yeah.

Deborah Neher 11:44

I mean, there are different species that that are adapted to different kinds of conditions. So if you have, you know, a tropics versus agricultural land in the temperate zone versus a wetland, they're gonna have different species just because they're adapted to those unique conditions.

Craig Macmillan 12:01

So you can tell a lot about a location. You can almost guess location like like constant I'm guessing that particulars species or perhaps genus, I'm not sure what level would be the important one, but you probably could or should identify these specific organisms, these specific types of organisms. How do you do that? We're talking about microscopic things that are distributed around soil. How do I find these little guys? What how did nematologists do it?

Deborah Neher 12:31

Yeah, no, that's a great question. First of all, address your species versus genus query. One is when we're looking to plant parasites, everybody identifies them to species, and sometimes even more precise than that there's actually races or, you know, subspecies, we would say. When we're looking at free living nematodes, we're happy if we can get to genus. We don't even have the knowledge to go to species for many of those. And part of it, there's so many different kinds, because I might find 50 to 100 different genera in one soil sample. So how do I get there, you get there. The first step is you have to get them out of the soil. And what we do is make a water slurry. So we'll take the soil, and we'll mix in water and stir that. And that will allow the nematodes to kind of swim out of that soil and into that water. And then we will run those through a series of sieves. So we start with kind of a coarse or large opening, go through that one first and make it successively smaller and smaller, until we can collect just we can get rid of the soil particles, and just have the nematodes on the final sieve. So that's one approach. But there are other methods that can be used to in terms of like cleaning them up as we can. I've used techniques where you can put them in a tray that has some kind of filter holding it up and having water and they'll swim out of that and you can collect them in an outer tray. And another cool technique is we can use a sugar flotation when you put this liquid into a tube with sugar, and spin it in a centrifuge, they're going to float because they're less dense than sugar. So if you're trying to concentrate them, you can use this method so that you can just pour the top part of that onto a serve. Now one tricky thing with that technique is you can't leave the sugar on very long, you got to get them rinsed off or they're just gonna shrivel. It's gonna make identification impossible, and it's also just a sticky mess to work with. So, people have been steering away from that. So I think of kind of a sieving methods giving a water slurry. The method I described with the sieving and flotation method is the one that I use for looking at entire soil communities. If one was interested in only the plant parasitic nematodes, there's another technique that's called an an illustrator, or semi automated method, and faster for like a diagnostic lab. And this is a technique where they use a sieve and they run water over it, and then there's some movement of that water and they can collect it, it's just a way they can try to process multiple samples. An illustrator is is a faster method, kind of what we call semi automated will allow a lab to process more samples within a day. The one downside with it is it's not as efficient with clay soils can miss some of the nematodes and under represents these predators, and the omnivores. It works great when you're just looking for a particular plant parasite, for example, that's fine, because you kind of know which needle in the haystack you're looking at.

Craig Macmillan 15:58

At least you know that.

Deborah Neher 16:02

Once you get the sample out, then it's usually in a water suspension. And we usually just let those settle for a little while and ends up that nematodes fall with gravity about one inch per hour, wait till they settle and we can concentrate them and then we'll first of all count how many nematodes we have in that volume of sample. And then we'll take a what we call a mass mount slide a slide that has a cavity, some depth, put some in there, and then we'll do the identification of those and we have to go to about 200 times magnification using a light microscope. Features that one looks at are some of the mouth features those that are at the feeding so you can understand the feeding, but also the the esophagus, within it and nematode you can see straight through there transparent. So and think about it is that you don't need the pigments if you're in soil because you don't have light. So these organisms are you don't need sight you're not seeing and they're you know, they're transparent. And so you can see straight through them. One of the challenges is, they are 3d. So sometimes you have to do a lot of focusing up and down takes a really good microscopists to do that. Some people will actually try to fix them or you know, kill them to hold them still. But sometimes you lose characters like how they move and swim can also be a character sometimes that helps to identify.

Craig Macmillan 17:31

And that quantification and identification has been important to another topic you work on, which has been around the idea of nematodes, as bio indicators might tell you something about what's going on in the environment, just whether they're there or not. And who. Can you tell us a little bit about that work, because fascinating stuff.

Deborah Neher 17:47

Sure. First, let me just give you a perspective, I consider myself a community ecologist. So I use a community ecology approach. So I'm looking at the community structure, or the community composition, and how that changes under different land management practices. The type of index that I found works the best is one that really looks at what the life history characteristics of different species. That means how sensitive or tolerant they are to disturbance, you know, how many offspring they have with their generation time is. So just to give an analogy, you know, it's kind of like comparing rats and elephants or carp and trout. Rats are the kind of what we call early stage, you know, they come in, they can tolerate a lot of stress where an elephant is going to be very sensitive, they have a long generation time. So if we apply that in nematodes, we have those that are early colonizers and those that are later in succession. We can tell the type and severity of disturbance based on the composition of that community. And as we learn more than we'll be able to even tell, you know, was that disturbance due to cultivation? Or was it disturbance due to heavy metal contamination, or perhaps even just a lot of additional a lot of fertilizer, that can actually shift a community to a very early successional stage. It's kind of an indicator of ecological succession. So you know, if you're in a forest, and you have a clear cut, and you want to progress gradually to a mature stand, old growth, you know, there's a lot of changes in species composition. So if there's no disturbance, you'd get to the old growth where there's, you know, the ultimate would be if you clear cut it, you can see the same kind of patterns in nematodes. So you can tell the kind of disturbance and where it's at on their trajectory. So that can be helpful to know the level of disturbance. It can be a tool for monitoring if you're trying to restore an environment as well. Now one thing that I just want to kind of address a myth is the idea of diversity. Most people think more diversity is better. And yeah, in general sense, but we have to be a little careful because diversity is just a mathematical equation. And it doesn't tell you who is there. You could have a diversity of invasives. Right? So we need to get to know who is there, it's just not how many different kinds are there. The other thing, if we're thinking of that analogy of a clear cut to an old growth is the most diversity is actually in the middle in the intermediate, because you're kind of in a transition between an early phase and a late stage. So you have overlap of species. For both of those. When you're at either extreme of the continuum, you actually have lower diversity, we tend to like to think about biodiversity, but we have to be a little bit careful in terms of that. And that's why I prefer an index that just looks at the community structure where it is on the whole continuum, rather than limiting it to just diversity.

Craig Macmillan 20:59

So is this something that a grape grower could use over time to see I'm using these practices? Is the community changing? is a community changing? In a good way? Are there things that I do that have suddenly you know, like you said, knock backwards and successional progress? Is that Is this the kind of tool? Is this the kind of measurement I can use to make decisions?

Deborah Neher 21:21

That is exactly it, it works best if you're doing it through time, you need to start somewhere and get a baseline. And then it's how is that changing through time, and it gives you feedback back on, am I on the right track or not? It's using this index where I really learned the cultivation or the physical disturbance of soil has the greatest impact on the soil foodweb. And it will set that back further than say, applying, you know, whether it's a chemical disturbance, whether that's a pesticide or fertilizer, for that matter. So the physical disturbance is really the most destructive to soil foodwebs.

Craig Macmillan 22:00

And that actually brings up another question, when we think about soil foodwebs. Are we talking about the first four inches? Two inches, six inches? Is there stuff happening in a foot that I should be interested in? Is there stuff below that, that I should be interested in? Because I got roots that are down at you know, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7? Feet? Where should I be putting my attention Deborah tell me please? Where should we put my attention?

Deborah Neher 22:20

Well, that's a great question, because so much sampling focuses on the top eight inches, because that's the plow layer. But that's a problem. Because really, the biology is going to be as deep as the roots. You know, the biology tends to be the most abundant near the surface and decreases as you go with depth. The other thing with roots is you have to think where are the actively growing roots. And when you're dealing with trees and woody plants, the biggest roots are not necessarily where all the activity is, it's really where the new roots are. And that's where the most biological so thinking about where is that happening? That would be the right place to look. Right. And usually that's a little closer to the surface, but there could be some of it deeper. So I usually like to think think about where the roots are. And that's where you should be sampling.

Craig Macmillan 23:07

Well that is some really good advice. And thank you for taking a topic that I personally have found very confusing over the years and giving it some clarity for me and also helping me see how we can what it means but also how we can use it and and how we should monitor it, which I think is great. So I want to thank you for being our guest, Dr. Deborah Neher Professor University of Vermont and plant soil science.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Soil is alive and we want a lot of life in the soil. According to Deborah Neher, Professor in the Department of Plant and Soil Science at the University of Vermont, healthy soils have three components. These are a range of different pore sizes to help with structure as well as balance water and air; balanced pH and nutrients; and organic matter to hold moisture and nutrients as well as provider microbes. Soil structure is created by mineral particles, bacteria, fungi, and plant roots. What determines a good quality soil depends on the ecosystem – a forest has different needs than active farmland.

Bacteria and fungi are the life forms most associated with soil health. Some tests show the number of fungi and bacteria and their ratio to one another. However, they are not showing what is in the soil and there is still limited research on what these fungi and bacteria are doing. Often bacteria are associated with negative health factors. But there are many good bacteria that promote plant growth by producing nutrients or making nutrients more available. Others provide biological control. And others convert nitrogen in concert with legumes. Fungi can also be good and bad. Their structure is like linking pipes so they connect plants. This can help cope with drought conditions by pulling water from faraway sources.

Deborah also touches on how to properly compost to kill off pathogens and weed seeds. Through research, she found that the process is more complicated than knowing the nitrogen to carbon ratio – the type of carbon matters! Her lab tried the same nitrogen to carbon compost "recipe" in three different production methods: windrow, aerobic static piles (ASP), vermicomposting. Each final product had completely different fungal and bacterial communities. Listen in to learn what kind of carbon is best for disease suppression.

References:

• 28: Understanding Soil Health (podcast)
• 72: Soil Microbes and Nutrient Availability (podcast)
• Changes in Bacterial and Fungal Communities across Compost Recipes, Preparation Methods, and Composting Times
• Managing Nitrogen in the Vineyard and the Winery Efficiently
• Neher Lab
• Neher Lab Publications
• Perspectives article that covers history and approach to soil health with research agenda to soil health: Resilient soils for resilient farms: An integrative approach to assess, promote and value soil health for small- and medium-size farms.
• SIP Certified
• Soil Builders Module 3d: Compost for Soil Function and Disease Suppression, 9 December 2021. Invited Webinar Presentation (podcast)
• Soil community composition and ecosystem processes: Comparing agricultural ecosystems with natural ecosystems
• Sustainable Ag Expo November 14-16, 2022 | Use code PODCAST for $50 off
• The Compost Handbook
• The soil symphony. Interview by Leah Kelleher, 8 August 2020 (podcast)

Get More

Subscribe wherever you listen so you never miss an episode on the latest science and research with the Sustainable Winegrowing Podcast. Since 1994, Vineyard Team has been your resource for workshops and field demonstrations, research, and events dedicated to the stewardship of our natural resources.

Learn more at www.vineyardteam.org.

Transcript

Craig Macmillan 0:00

I'm your host, Greg McMillan and our guest today is Dr. Deborah Neher. She's a professor in the Department of Plant soil science, the University of Vermont. And today we're going to talk about soil health. Welcome to the podcast.

Deborah Neher 0:10

Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here.

Craig Macmillan 0:13

Before we get rolling, I understand you grew up on a farm, you have some background in agriculture.

Deborah Neher 0:16

I do. I grew up as a fourth generation family farm in Northwest Kansas, where we grew wheat and sorghum and had some livestock. And as far as my educational background, I have formal education in environmental science, as well as plant ecology. And I did my PhD at UC Davis in plant pathology. Since then, I've kind of merged to the ecology and the agriculture and I consider myself a soil ecologist. So my area is biology, but I work in soil.

Craig Macmillan 0:44

That's awesome. Because there's a lot of life in the soil. And we're about talking about everybody's interested in healthy soils. We have government programs now about topic. We have conferences, we have articles, we have books, but this is one of my favorite questions. When I talk to people about this topic I started with, what is your definition of a healthy soil?

Deborah Neher 1:03

That's a great question. And I know there's a number of definitions that are out there. But as a biologist, I want to first emphasize that soil is alive, and that we want a lot of life in the soil. A healthy soil would be one that's porous, that we have a number of, you know, range of different pore sizes, which give the soil structure and this also helps balance air in the water and soil. We need a chemically balanced soil, one that's valid for pH as well as nutrients in the soil. And then we need the biological part. And that's usually relates to organic matter, living plants. And plant roots are an important piece of that, too. Organic matter is kind of unique on the surface of organic matter, it's got these negative charges, and that attracts nutrients that have positive charges, like magnets, you know, opposites attract, yeah. But in addition to that nutrient holding capacity, it also brings in the microbes, and that's really a source of the microbes into the soil. Plant roots are also a source and support of the microbes in soil. So healthy soil, it's porous, it's chemically balanced, and it contains organic matter.

Craig Macmillan 2:10

The actual parameters for that are probably going to vary depending on the ecosystem, right? So what are the challenges for us? But how do I know like, how do I what do I manage? What do I look for? And obviously, I think, from what I can see, for different crops, I think the ranges are still kind of being figured out. I think what most people would like as well, I've got a five on this variable, do I need a 10? Or am I okay? And it doesn't seem to be that simple.

Deborah Neher 2:33

It is not that simple. It's really unique site by site, you know, one number can't really be applied to everything. When you get a number, you have to think well, what's good for what? And so a number for a good agriculture system might be a different number or a bad number, say, for a forest system, or for a functional wetland. So we have to really think about what is the the type of ecosystem? And what kind of land management practices are we interested in? That really depends and also what types of soil we're on, you know, what is good on a sandy soil might be different than if it's in a clay soil, heavy clay soil, for example.

Craig Macmillan 3:12

Exactly. And so today, I want to focus on the microbiome aspect of this. And we do you have a number of different types, classes, find ones even of organisms, bacteria, fungi, actinomycetes, silicates, nematota, there's probably others that I'm forgetting. But today, I want to focus on the bacteria and the fungi, because those are two things that you can send to you send a sample to a lab, and you will get some measures of those. And it's like, okay, cool, but what are they doing? Right, so what role do different kinds of bacteria play in the functioning of a healthy soil?

Deborah Neher 3:44

A great question. And I'll just start with, I think we have to be really careful not to over generalize and say all bacteria are alike, or all fungi are alike. Because there are such a broad diversity. There's 1000s of 1000s of species, and different species do different things. And I also like to think of microbiome kind of like an orchestra, you need all the different players and working together. You don't just want specialists and soloist, you need the whole ensemble, right? If we go back to bacteria, there's a lot of different bacteria there are people often think about pathogens, that's the first thing on the mind is the bad guys. But there's a lot of beneficial bacteria, as well. There are bacteria that we call them plant growth, promoting bacteria, they're producing chemicals in the soil that are stimulating plant growth, the plant might perceive them as kind of like a plant hormone, perhaps or it could be converting a nutrient that makes it more available to the plant. There are some bacteria involved in biological control. For example, there's a bacillus subtilis that's a known as a biological control. And they can do that by just through their own natural defenses. You know, they're going to antagonize or compete with other microbes. There are also bacteria that are involved in nitrogen fixation, that are associated with legumes in the nodules of the legume, they create like a little factory in there, where they're converting nitrogen gas from the atmosphere, and converting that into ammonium, which is a form that the plant can take out. And one thing we have to be careful in bacteria is not to think they're all alike, as I mentioned, and even, we go well, then let's get down to family or maybe get down to genus, but you even have to be careful. Not every species within a genus is the same. For example, there's one called Pseudomonas and there's one species of Pseudomonas Pseudomonas syringae. That's a pathogen. There's another species of Pseudomonas Pseudomonas fluorescence, that's a well known biological control. Now, fungi, fungi have equally different, you know, variety of lifestyles or things they do. There's also fungal pathogens, there's those that are decomposers mycorrhizae. That's a popular topic these days, that's a type of fungus. The cool thing about them is they're like a big plumbing system, they have this body structure that's like long pipes. They're called hyphae. And they can connect between different plants and go long distances. So they can be helpful to help plants say cope with drought, for example, because they can pull water from a great distance and pull that into a central use. I also mentioned the that an important attribute of healthy soils, I think, is aggregate structure. And these aggregates are really a composite of not only the mineral particles of soil, but it links in the bacteria that produce sugars on their outside their sticky, helping those hold together. And the fungal hyphae, which act like threads that weave these together and then plant roots to they're really working in concert with that soil to help provide this structure. Aggregate stability is I think, an excellent indicator that we can measure of soil health.

Craig Macmillan 7:04

Is that's related to bulk density?

Deborah Neher 7:06

Ah, good question. Indirectly, aggregateability can be related to bulk density. Usually, if you have more aggregates, you actually have lower bulk density. Okay, because an aggregate is going to have open spaces, it's going to have a balance of air and water. So bulk density would be just thinking about the solid particles per unit volume. So if you fluffed those up with more spaces and voids, within that aggregate, you'll have less bulk density.

Craig Macmillan 7:36

Is there is there a way that I can can measure or investigate aggregates?

Deborah Neher 7:41

Yeah, that's a good question. As far as aggregate stability, there are some really fancy advanced methods that organizations like NRCS, the Natural Resource Conservation Service do and if you're a soil scientist you get into there's also some really simple things that you could do. The simplest one I ever saw was taking an egg carton and in the base of those putting clumps of soil and then adding a little bit of water into each of those and see how much that disintegrates once you add water. If it just all crumbles and become small particles, you do not have very good structure. It should stay fairly intact when you're dripping that water on there.

Craig Macmillan 8:22

Interesting interesting. I'm just thinking about clay so we have a lot of a lot of vineyards are in clay, clay, gravelly clay, loams, etc on the Coast California and and other places. And how hard it is the water to go in to those clay soils. So I'm thinking about like dropping putting water on a chunk of clay and and just seeing it kind of get slimy.

Deborah Neher 8:44

Yeah, clays are tough clays are really tough.

Craig Macmillan 8:47

Are there ways to at least get a sense of how much life there is in this the soil? I mean, I know that that like, oh, that's got to have this or that. But other kind of metrics that are ways of investigating or anything that I can do. So for instance, I've been looking at some lab reports recently where they give us a total bacteria to active bacteria ratio, and they give us some ranges, then they actually will give us some actual identifications of particular nematodes that are found total funded active. Okay. So I've been trying to figure out kind of how to interpret that. But then I'm also curious, so how do you cope with that kind of thing? Is this a gene sequencing thing? Or is it a mass based thing or you pour the reagent on and it turns blue?

Deborah Neher 9:29

Great question. And I've worked with some of the methods, those measures that you're talking about are really, I think, defined as total and active bacteria, total and active fungi, right? Those methods, at least when I've used them involve a stain, kind of a fluorescent stain that you put on. And then you're actually making those into onto microscope slides and using the microscope so you have to spend time behind the microscope and you're counting, you know the number of cells or the number of hyphae that are crossing, you have a grid there, a grid pattern, and you're counting it. And that allows you to be quantitative. It's a laborious method, I would say it is the gold standard, if you want to actually get an estimate of total microbial biomass and activity, however, it's very tedious and very laborious. Another approach that people have used is one that's called PLFA phospho lipid fatty acids. That one is an easier method to get an estimate of biomass and activity. These are giving you some estimates. But this is where I say we have to be careful about overgeneralizing because this tells us nothing about who is there or what they're doing. We just knows there's a lot of them. And that's step one. Sometimes we hear a generalization about what about the ratio of fungi to bacteria, for example, and it's been touted that we want to strive for a higher ratio of fungi to bacteria. I'll tell you this concept really comes it from literature and science that was done in the 1980s. Really, the focus was on the effect of cultivation and tilling the soil. That's what it's really representing. Because when we go and cultivate and till soil, in fact, that's probably the most destructive thing we can do to the soil biology, you're just like ripping their house in their habitat into shreds. You're wrecking that pore structure. But anyway, so in cultivation, when we have highly tilled soils, that tends to favor bacteria. I mean, if you think about it, lots of threads, you know, for the hyphae. If you're slicing through there with knives, you're breaking those up. So that's deleterious to fungi. It's also deleterious to earthworms and also deleterious to other micro arthropods and larger organisms. So with cultivation, it's known that those tend to be fairly bacterially dominated soils. And so the thinking is, then if you go with a reduced till, or no till you're going to have more fungi. And so you'll start to see that ratio increase that, you know, tells us something about cultivation. I guess being trained as a plant pathologist, my first thing is we need to know at least who is there? Are we talking about pathogens? Or are we talking about beneficials? If all of those and most of them are pathogens, we don't want them? That's not necessarily a good thing, if all those fungi are pathogens, like ferrocerium or verticillium, or yeah, so we need to know who they are. That's the tip of the iceberg, right?

Craig Macmillan 12:38

You're working on related work, you actually do go down to the species level, when you do figure that out to describe the community in whatever system it is you're looking at. How do you actually do that?

Deborah Neher 12:47

Traditionally, we we use agar plates, and we try to culture these organisms. And it took very specialized media, some organisms grow faster than others. So we put things on there biocides to try to inhibit the ones we didn't want and allow the ones we did want, we call that a selective or a semi selective media. But then we learned only about 10% of microbes can live on a petri dish. So we were just looking at a subset of these organisms that did well. And consequently, we are missing a lot. But that's where the molecular techniques have come in, and helped us discover all those organisms that are not able to be cultured on a petri dish. There are techniques where you can take a soil and you can extract the DNA out of that. And then we use a series of steps, we call it amplicon sequencing, we put out what's called a primer on there, and it's going to copy a specific region of that DNA. And it's usually a region that's highly variable between species. And then once we extract that DNA, we can go through a process called a PCR Polymerase Chain Reaction just makes lots of copies. And then we can look at the sequence and there's databases that have sequences, and that helps us match to who is there, you know, the technology keeps improving, the longer the pieces we have, the better resolution we're gonna have. If they're short pieces, we may only get to family or genus longer pieces, that technology keeps improving. So we'll get more species.

Craig Macmillan 14:27

Do you think this kind of technology is going to find its way into the commercial realm? Or is this a strictly an academic thing at the moment?

Deborah Neher 14:34

Oh, I think definitely. And the price keeps coming down. So it's getting cheaper and cheaper to do. What I mentioned is who is there? What technology we still have to develop is what are they doing? That's a different kind of technique, and that's still at the academic level, and uses some different methods where we actually have to look at the genes and link them into a function. Are they fixing nitrogen? Are they producing say an oxidative enzyme. Antibiotic? What are they doing that part's academic. As far as who is there? I think this is where we have to understand their ecology, we need to know who and a little bit what they're reflecting, or is knowing that say, a lot of E. coli is there, that might be telling us do we have a contamination problem, you know, for example, if we know that's it, then we can prepare like a probe, a little tag that says, I want that organism and we can actually go fishing for it, pull it out and quantify it and say, this is how much we have. And then we could develop a model and say, once you're above a certain threshold, this could be risky. But we have to link it to say, a land management practice, or some known contaminant or something about land management, so we can help interpret what that means.

Craig Macmillan 15:52

So it sounds like to me, at the practitioner level, or at the industry level, we have some broad categories of things that we can find out. But there's a lot behind the curtain, we are guessing a lot. And so what's your advice, if I'm in that kind of situation where I have some information, but I don't have the kind of maybe I would like from a science standpoint, it's gonna be very important, obviously. But you've said different microbes do different things, what's kind of my best bet in terms of how I should proceed, or their techniques or things changes maybe, or the things that I might look for. So for instance, you talked about pathogens, I should be taking the top, I should be taking the top of the plant the plant part and evaluating it in relation to the soil health. So I might, for instance, have a high, I don't know, total active fungi, but maybe they are deleterious. And so I should be looking at the plant, seeing how the plants reacting that just simply what I'm getting out of the analysis, because it's kind of like what you want kind of what the grower wants, this is my take what a grower wants to say, okay, I'm gonna take a sample of soil, and what set it off? And then I'm gonna get a report back, and they're gonna tell me, yes or no, do this. Right. That's kind of where we're at at the moment. And so do you have any advice for how I can work with that? I guess I'm looking for some help on like, okay, gonna report back what I do next thing is just kind of kind of fishing for something here.

Deborah Neher 17:14

I think the first step is you always want to be scouting your plants. Do you see some kind of symptom? How well is it growing? Is are those leaves yellowing? Do I see lesions? Above ground? Is there something below ground? I mean, I think that's step one. So am I expecting there to be a problem? Those are some factors that we'll look at, is it a disease or not? Or is it an insect? You know, it could be that kind of thing. So we need to see, are there lesions are there root nodules? Are there something that doesn't look very healthy? That's step one. And I was gonna say for sure, if that's the case, then I would send a sample could be soil, or it could be part of the plant that has the symptoms into say, maybe a plant diagnostic clinic, but a lot of land grant universities have these available to growers that would help you identify a disease. There is interest in just general microbial activity, because everybody's trying to increase the activity and the diversity, etc. Commercially, there's limited types of tests available. The ones that are available are going to do like you said, the active and total bacteria or fungi, there are some estimates of respiration, which is another measure of activity, right. And there's another method that's fairly new. It's a per manganite method. It's a different chemistry method, a different way of looking, I can get your reference for the, you know, at the end, this per manganite method is is really linked in with management practices, and has been shown to really link nicely with that rather than just respiration. The problem with respiration is that you don't know who is respiring is it fungi, bacteria, it could be the plant roots itself, too. So it's really difficult to interpret. That's the really hard thing is it's so general, you don't know where it's coming from. On the beneficials and looking at the overall community. There are not very many commercial labs available yet. This is something I really would like to see. And I keep pushing it. One of the challenges is trying to get enough people that are trained to actually run these tests. Yeah, yeah. Like I've worked with some nematode communities, and I don't look at just pathogens but beneficials and there just aren't enough people in the world trained to do that. However, I keep if we can narrow down a particular like a dozen or a couple dozen organisms that are really like sentinel species are really tell us something important. Then we could develop molecular probes to those that specifically pull those out and help us interpret it. But that is still really at the research phase. Those are some of the things I'm going to do. But I need more people like myself so that we can accomplish this faster and maybe in my lifetime.

Craig Macmillan 20:12

Yeah, that's, that's a whole nother show the state of science and encouraging scientists of the future. You know, you don't even think of like little Jenny at age 10. Hey say, Jenny, what do you want to be? I want to be an ecologist, you know, it's not very normal and get that all the time. But we need more kids like that. Right? Right. Because nematodes are incredibly fascinating. They are just mind blowingly fascinating. Before we before we talked about that, or if we have time to talk about that. I wanted to get to compost recipes. You've done some interesting work where you studied different compost recipes, including what the manipulations of the windrose were, and then what the impact was on soil and fungal communities coming out of that. What kinds of things did you learn?

Deborah Neher 20:56

Sure, let me just tell you how I got started on compost. Yeah, so there was a year, a couple years here, I'm in Vermont. So there were a couple of years here that we had some major epidemics called early blight, or late blight, and these affect solanaceous, crops, potatoes, tomatoes, it was just bad year bad weather for this particular epidemic. So the farmer said, What do I do with my disease plants? Well, the extension agent said, throw them in the landfill. And I'm like, you know, the idea is you want to have keep the organic matter and the nutrients on your farm, we're not throw them in the landfill. So I said why if you compost these properly, you should be able to kill those pathogens and those weed seeds. So I set up a demonstration project. And we demonstrated that, okay, it works. Now the catch is you've got to really do a particular type of composting, it's got to be really monitored, it's what we call a thermophilic composting. It's got to reach high temperatures, and it says high temperatures that really helped kill the pathogens and weed seeds. Okay, that part is pretty well defined guidelines for that are, you know, outlined by the National Organic Program. And those work, the thing that it doesn't do is tell you what comes after the composting, they tell you the guidelines how to reach the thermophilic. But you don't want to stop there. Because if you let that cure and mature, you're going to have a lot of recolonization by beneficial microbes, and micro arthropods that are going to help you manage diseases. But you got to let it you got to be patient and allow this recolonization it happens naturally. These rules that are guidelines that are developed by say National Organic Program tell you use a carbon to nitrogen ratio of say 25 to 40 to one, so that many units of carbon two per unit of nitrogen, but they don't tell you what kind of carbon and carbons come in different flavors. There's carbons that are like carbohydrates that are like sugars, starches, they're really easy to decompose. And there are those that are like lignans and cellulose that are more difficult to decompose. We took some recipes where we could keep carbon to nitrogen ratios constant, but just changed the type of carbon, we follow the recipe. But what we found is you get completely different outcomes, that the type of carbon will completely change the micro, the bacterial and the fungal communities. So they're very unique. So as I say, recipe matters. You really need to think about what are you putting, hay, are you putting softwood you know, wood chips you puting some hardwood bark? What is it? As far as disease suppression they found out, you know, including some wood chips in that the bark and they're generally support a product that has more disease suppressive qualities.

Craig Macmillan 23:56

Okay. Is there a reference or a compendium or a book, for instance, that might have some more need to have information about these techniques. So people can try different things.

Deborah Neher 24:10

I have a peer reviewed scientific articles that outlines the actual research. But I've also just summarized a very large comprehensive chapter on disease suppression and using compost for disease suppression that just came out in a new book called The A Composting Handbook that was published in December 2021. And that is now available for purchase. I think it's about 1000 page book. So it's very comprehensive. So I've got a chapter that's almost 40 pages long in there, but it includes tables of which kinds of pathogens can be managed with compost, which kind of diseases you know, that's that's one of the features that I think will be useful to people that want to use composting.

Craig Macmillan 24:55

And I'll put a link to that in the in the show notes.

Deborah Neher 24:58

Great.I have one other thing I wanted to do. mentioned that I tried it, because you mentioned about the process and what's going on in the windrows. So we tried another thing, there's different means of achieving this thermophilic pile, you can have a windrow, where you can be turning it or you might keep it if you're trying to save land space, you have aerobic static piles. ASP is another method, just forcing oxygen into that. And then so those are two methods. And then there's a type of vermi-composting, working with earthworms that can also be used. Now, the thing with earthworms if you get too hot, it'll kill the earthworm when we're trying to do compost that can be meet qualifications for certified organic, it has to be shown and demonstrated that you've reached the temperatures. Long story short is we came up with the same recipe and tried curing it three different ways through the windrow the ASP or the vermi-compost. Start the same recipe, different curing process, completely different fungal and bacterial communities. So when people say, oh, just throw stuff together, I'm like, No, you really need to think about designing that compost. It leads me to think that eventually we need some designer compost, some that are made unique for different applications. And there's also a need to have a little bit more standardization and labeling of these products. So a consumer knows what they're getting. If you're gonna pay more, you want to know you're getting something better. Yes. You know, than if you're going low bid.

Craig Macmillan 26:37

Yeah, exactly. And in the in the vineyard world, I've been very pleased to see the composters, at least in our in a separate press California, you know, being able to demonstrate their techniques and give you the analysis and allow you to compare products pick like well, what I'm looking for here is I'm looking for nitrogen in some form. Okay, here's an analysis of nitrogen, because I'm less interested in and I'm more interested in carbon in some form, what kind of books organic carbon, so we fortunately, we're getting some of that, you know, so we're getting there. But obviously, there's way more work to do, like you said, designer products for particular situations, particular paths. And it's exciting. I think we got a long way to go. But we're doing really well. And I think people just generally interested in compost has a really good thing. And they're interested in, in learning more, I think is there. I think a long time ago was a hay compost is good. Like that was it. You know, compost is good. And then as time has gone on, we've got more experience, we've learned, hey, I need to be a little bit more sophisticated than that. So we're kind of out of time. But is there one thing regard to soil health that you'd suggest to our listeners, if you want to prove the health of their sauce?

Deborah Neher 27:43

Well, I think to me two biggies for really improving soil health is you want to keep plants in the system, and especially perennial plants, and that applies very much to vineyards. That's, that's good and also to reduce the tillage. So if we can keep the ideas, keeping plant roots in there all the time, and reducing the tillage that's going to really favor a more robust, active, resilient soil community and thus better soil health.

Craig Macmillan 28:13

That is good advice. I think there's a lot more to talk about, which I would love to do. We'll see if we can do that in the future of there's so much going on here. Where can people find out more about you?

Deborah Neher 28:23

Well, I will provide some links, you know, that will be available to you at the podcast site, some links there. I also have a personal web page that I make available, my various references as well. If you just search by name on Google, you'll find me everywhere.

Craig Macmillan 28:40

Yes, I noticed that. And yeah, I've got we will have a link to the lab, the near lab webpage as well, some other things and then a ton of links to various articles, podcasts, chapters. You've done a great job of getting out there. I really appreciate that a lot of folks do work kind of in a closet. And you very much had been doing some extension work and getting the findings out there.

Deborah Neher 29:01

My father would always ask me, well, what good is this for me? So it always kept me thinking I owe everything I learned in do I need to come back around and think about the application.

Craig Macmillan 29:13

I want to thank our guest, Dr. Deborah Neher, Professor of Plant and Soil Science at the University of Vermont.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

With over 250 members in our SIP Certified program for sustainable winegrowing, it's no surprise that there are many tried and true methods for keeping staff informed and up to date on matters of sustainability. For this last Marketing Tip in the Train Your Staff series, we talked to a few of our members about how they make sustainability a familiar and comfortable topic among their sales and hospitality staff.

Welcome to Marketing Tip Monday with SIP Certified. We know customers are looking for wines labeled as sustainable. While our longer-form episodes help you learn about the latest science and research for the wine industry, these twice-monthly micro podcasts will help you share your dedication to sustainable winegrowing so you can show your customers that you share their values.

Today we share three ways our members keep their team up to date on their sustainable practices so that you can use these methods at your winery.

The Key at Jackson Family Wines

Jackson Family Wines supplies its staff with Trade Sustainability Resources through an online platform. Staff can use this site to view photos from the properties that document specific sustainable practices, study aesthetically pleasing and descriptive infographics, and go through PowerPoint presentations that summarize sustainability initiatives at specific properties.

There are also charts of the brands' certified sustainable wines, a variety of sustainable-themed POS materials, and documents with statements, stats, and goals pertaining to the company's dedication to sustainability.

A JFW Sustainability Stats table shows an annual comparison of various sustainability metrics, including gallons of water used per gallon of wine produced, kilowatt-hours of solar energy produced per year, percentage of winery energy offset by solar, and more. Each metric is also given a summary explanation below, so their staff knows exactly what the data means and how progress is measured.

Take Home: Using a platform to house your brand-specific sustainability information provides staff on-demand access to current and chronicled sustainability initiatives, and is a great way to educate your staff on current sustainable practices as well as what sustainability means in the context of your company's identity.

Maverick Farming Bridges the Gap

Jim Stollberg, owner of Maverick Farming, consistently updates the staff at the many properties he manages.

He bridges the gap that sometimes exists between the vineyard and the tasting room by attending staff meetings and talking with the staff. Here, he shares what is currently underway and upcoming in the vineyard, and answers any questions tasting staff may have. Plus, Jim is only a phone call away. If the staff person has a client with a question they do not know to answer to, Jim is there to assist. This access not only increases staff's awareness of what is happening outside their windows but also provides them with plenty of sustainable conversation material to use while conducting tastings!

Jim also sends monthly emails to tasting rooms that provide a summary of what's going on at the property, and what to expect in the coming weeks. He tells his clients what the Maverick team is observing in the vines and fruit, as well as what projects they are finishing up, working on, and planning to start.

Take Home: Email updates from your vineyard manager are easy to access, share, and refer back to when you're looking for current topics to focus on while conducting staff meetings or tastings. Inviting your vineyard manager to your tasting room staff meeting provides an opportunity for staff to learn about what is happening in the vineyard directly from the source!

Face to Face at Niner Wine Estates

Anyone familiar with Niner Wine Estates knows that sustainability is at the heart of everything they do, from the vineyard to the winery, and from the garden to the kitchen! Craig Macmillan, Critical Resource Manager, is communicative with his staff on a regular basis:

Craig takes the opportunity at regular tasting room staff pre-shift meetings to present topics, give updates, and address recent questions staff may have received from customers. The pre-shift meeting conversations ensure staff go into their shift prepared to engage with their clients with the latest information from management.

The importance of each individual staff member's knowledge can't be understated. That's why Craig takes the time to pass through the tasting room to talk briefly one-on-one with members of his staff to make them aware of what's going on, and give them the opportunity to ask him questions -- a method that has received positive responses from his staff!

Afterhours events are a great opportunity to build a sense of togetherness within your company. At Niner, staff gets together every couple of months for a family meal and educational conversation about what sustainability is and why it is important, and to discuss the practical aspects of implementing practices to achieve sustainability goals. Craig says these events are well attended and are effective in instilling an understanding of sustainability at Niner Wine Estates.

Take Home: Team-building events like pre-shift meetings and afterhours events build a sense of togetherness among your tasting room staff, and provide an opportunity for group discussion about what sustainability means to your brand. Regularly connecting with the individuals on your team is crucial for ensuring each one of them is familiar with your brand's sustainability initiatives, and has the knowledge necessary to give educational and accurate information while conducting tastings.

Take Advantage of these Resources!

Here are some SIP Certified sustainability resources for you to share with your staff to supplement your staff trainings:

Electronic resources

• Talking SIP Infographics:
• SIP Buzzwords for Your Consumer-Facing Staff: SIP Buzzwords
• Tailor Your Message to Fit Your Consumer: Generational Analysis Report Highlights
• Talk to Your Customers About Your Sustainable Practices: Answering Customers' Top Questions
• Share SIP 101 With Your Customers: SIP Certified 101 Understanding the Fundamentals
• SIP Smart Training online course
• SIP Certified Jeopardy
• SIP Certified Program Overview Presentation
• eNewsletter sign-up: SIP Certified Marketing Tips

Check out the show notes for links to this article, PDF downloads to help you talk about sustainability with your customers, an educational game of Jeopardy, and sign up for our biweekly Marketing Tips newsletter. Until next time, this is Sustainable Winegrowing with the Vineyard Team.

References:

• **SIP Smart Training online course
• Marketing Tips eNewsletter
• SIP Certified
• Tips to Train Your Staff from 3 SIP Certified Members

Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Fungi, known as AMF, has an interesting an important relationship with plants, grapevines included. AMF helps vines take up mineral nutrients, creates a layer of protection from pathogens by occupying plant cells, and seems to improve soil structure and water movement. In turn, grapevines supply carbohydrates to the fungus. Scientists believe the pant calculates the value of giving carbon in exchange for nutrients provided by the AMF.

Tian Tian, Viticulture Farm Advisor, Cooperative Extension Kern County, UC Cooperative Extension studies this super host relationship between grapevines and AMF to determine how farmers can cultivate this natural alliance.

She also covers how different Nitrogen applications impact wine flavor. A winemaker can create tropical notes or clean flavors in Chardonnay through soil, foliar or winery applications of Nitrogen.

References:

• 28: Understanding Soil Health
• 72: Soil Microbes and Nutrient Availability
• Appropriate Time to Measure Leaf and Stem Water Potential (Abstract only)
• Dr. Tian Tian, Cooperative Extension Kern County
• Impact of Nitrogen Fertilizer or Nitrogen Wine Additions on Productivity and Sensory Outcomes (Abstract only)
• Managing Nitrogen in the Vineyard and the Winery Efficiently
• SIP Certified
• Sustainable Ag Expo November 14-16, 2022 | Use code PODCAST for $50 off
• The Effect of Soil Nitrogen Enrichment on Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Fungi (Video)

Get More

Subscribe wherever you listen so you never miss an episode on the latest science and research with the Sustainable Winegrowing Podcast. Since 1994, Vineyard Team has been your resource for workshops and field demonstrations, research, and events dedicated to the stewardship of our natural resources.

Learn more at www.vineyardteam.org.

Transcript

Craig Macmillan 0:00

Today is Dr. Tian Tian Viticultural Farm Advisor with Corporate Extension, Kern County, part of the UC Corporate Extension system. Dr. Tian, thank you for being with us today.

Dr Tian Tian 0:11

Thanks for having me.

Craig Macmillan 0:12

Can you tell us a little bit what's your role as a Viticulture Farm Advisor? That's a term that we hear but we don't always know kind of what it means.

Dr Tian Tian 0:19

My title is a Viticulture Farm Advisor. So there's a three components involved in my job extension, research and education. So a lot of times what we do is we help growers to solve problems, through farm calls and to find better solutions for their problems through a research project. And if they are something, knowledge have been obtained through research or other sources, we communicate with growers and to inform them the availability of those knowledge. And the meanwhile, education is occurred during this process. Specifically for Kern County, this is a big area for grape production. So 60% of the grape in the county are table grapes, and close to 30% are wine grapes, and 10% is a rasin grapes. The nature of my work, I work close with table grape growers, then to help them to solve the production issues they may have. And they're teaching me a lot of things along the way.

Craig Macmillan 1:20

I'm sure. I'm sure. So you have a role directly with farmers.

Dr Tian Tian 1:25

Yeah, yeah, it's way, a lot of times we find those research questions in the vineyard and a grower call us to say, for example, last year, was it delayed, the spring grows, a lot of them are observed. Stunted growth, and they're just wondering what's happened. And then that is actually as a start off me to look into what it is the reasons lead to the problem. And next year, what can we do better. And then, early this year, when we have our annual meeting and a rower come and they just say, Okay, now we know how there's some practice we can use to avoid the problem again, and how to adjust our practice based on the weather we got in certain years. And what other things we should taking, taking consideration when making management practices. All of those has been a really beneficial for both sides. I learned a lot from them, and then they actually benefited from the extension work were doing.

Craig Macmillan 2:25

That's really great. And I'm glad that that exists. And I'm glad you're on the job there in Kern. And prior to that you have done a lot of research in the area of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi. And also in terms of the effects of nitrogen, either as fertilizer or natural uptake, into vines and impacts on buying productivity and also on wine quality and all of that. Mycorrhizal fungi are something that a lot of us hear about. We're aware of. We know they're important. It's part of the soil biome, but I think a lot of us can use at least a refresher course. What exactly are arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi? What is the role that they play in the soil microbiome?

Dr Tian Tian 3:05

That's a really good question. Actually. I feel arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi is probably a one group of the fungus were no more than a lot of other groups. The reason for that is arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi actually form the fungal structure inside of the critical cell of grapevine roots. And it's probably something happened million years ago that grapevine just decided they really liked this a friend. So for a lot of roots, we have looking at 80, let me say 60 to 95% of the root cells are a critical cells are colonized by arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi. And so it's kind of a reflection about how how tight those association is. So in terms of what does the fungus do, there's a main, the three main roles we know. The top is to help the plants to take mineral nutrients from the soil. So especially those fully mobile ones and the ones we know more than others is a phosphorus. So it's in the vineyard where you have low phosphorus availability, the day you fumigat it and then just kill that AMF inoculum and your ends up with a stunted vine because phosphorus deficiency and it has been observed in the past. But once you innoculate with AMSF they're improving the efficiency of obtain those fully mobile nutrients. And the second thing we believe or it needs more research into the area is because they have a lot of fungal structure is a high fast growing in the soil. So they improve the aggregation of the soil and then improve the water movement in the soil. So that is, that is a new area where or kind of the newer research or dive into it is maybe the grapevines are also say creating a lot of the, let's say sugar or other compounds a carbohydrate compounds through AMF hyphae. And so it's influencing the soil microbial community in that way. So it is a really interesting fungus where they have part leaving the plants and apart out of the plants, and also there have a critical contribution to grapes. But it's a fair trade when the AMF is working hard to grow the hyphae through to explore the soil for those mineral nutrients. And the grapevines are supply carbohydrate to those fungus as well. So what they caught is a fair trade market. In other crop, what they find is actually the plants were reward the AMF be able to deliver the more resources they need.

Craig Macmillan 5:54

So are AMF actually do they play the role of kind of an extension of the roots? They're bringing resources to the root?

Dr Tian Tian 6:03

Yeah, kind of you can understand that way they consider the the high face or extension of the roots. But there's other arguments is a hybrid much stronger as compared to a roots. So what is probably not a really close analogy. So what we find is the root length off a grapevine is kind of the distance your walk your dog in a day, but the length of the hyphae the vine can hold is the probably the lens you can kind of make a circle around the earth for at least one circle. So yeah, because there's lower construction cost, if you have thinner hyphae compare with grapevine roots, which is thicker as compared to grass and as a crop. But that data is only opt in to from our greenhouse trial. It's does not necessarily mena its representing what happened in the natural environment.

Craig Macmillan 7:03

How do you study the stuff in the natural environment? This seems really hard. You're talking about things that are finer and sounds like very fragile, even compared to roots. And if you're growing things in like a clay, clay loam soil, it seems like it'd be hard to tease these little bits out or to study how things moved or anything. How do you do it in the field?

Dr Tian Tian 7:22

Yeah, so in the field, what our focus is we focus on the roots, it is really difficult to get even in the greenhouse where the vines growing in a confined space, but those hyphae are really hard to pick up from the soil. And then to find them to isolate them and to evaluate them is really difficult. But there's a certain protocol can be used to study that area. It's just not that what I did for my PhD. My PhD advisor was left with all those. So what my my PhD work focused is I'm looking into arbusbular actually living in the roots, they were formed a tree like a beautiful structure called arbusbular actually living in the roots, they were formed a tree like a beautiful structure called el bosque, you're the frequency of those albacore show up and the intensity of their basket or, or even the size of them are a reflection of the nutrient exchange between the two partners. So what I did is we're we're collecting rock samples, both in the field and also in the greenhouse to clean it up, and then to stain the roots and a molded glass plate, and then to look under scope. So we could say how different treatment has effect, basically, the association of grapevines and arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi. But in addition to that, we'll look into plant grows, plant nutrient status and to track it during the season. And so in our list work, give us some idea about what happening. It's a big complicated puzzle and a wedge, I find it's really fascinating, but may allow it to make it a different area to study albacore. The frequency of those arbuscular show up and the intensity of their arbuscular or, or even the size of them are a reflection of the nutrient exchange between the two partners. So what I did is we're we're collecting root samples, both in the field and also in the greenhouse to clean it up, and then to stain the roots and mount it on a glass plate, and then to look under scope. So we could say how different treatment has effect, basically, the association of grapevines and arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi. But in addition to that, we'll look into plant grows, plant nutrient status and to track it during the season. And so in our list work, give us some idea about what happening. It's a big complicated puzzle and a which, I find it's really fascinating, but may allow it to make it a different area to study.

Craig Macmillan 9:01

Right, right. Right, right. This is a silly question, I guess. But there's no silly questions. So is it fair to say that more AMF is better for crop?

Dr Tian Tian 9:12

That's actually a really good question. We're trying to find the answer is not an optimal level. It's like wow, what my wines are 80% of the fine roots of my vine our colonized and away call it good. It's more complicated than that. If we're thinking about a question like this is first if you like you're in your vineyard, and you do your leaf petiol or leaf blade and nutrient test your phosphorus or has never been really a problem. So for us, that's an indication that the vines, the association between mycorrhizal and the grapevines are working and then so if that does not really work, and the way you're using the test you say a phosphorus is a probably mineral nutrient or tell you how good the bond is. And another thing is grapevine we consider it as a super host. They love AMF. So listen, it's how it happened is glorified probably pretty efficient in terms of fixed cover so they can afford to allocate those were like to contribute to the AMF to you know, to establish a good relationship. And another thing for plants is they need to consider if I give the carbon to the it's not that smart of the process, but that's how we think that's happened is the grapevine so will have a way to semi calculate how much carbon you get or how much things like nutrient you can get from that. So what they find is with the amount of carbohydrate they supply, and it's more efficient to allow the fungus to do the job to get the bio nutrients. And then there's other benefits off AMF is there whilst they occupied the cells and a lot of time the the pathogens are hard to get into the into the roots and to serve as a layer of protection. That is area more research is dive into under to say how good it works. So in general, I would think not exactly more AMF is better. Its the plant make it's a choice that based on the situation. But for other samples I have a look at in Oregon and the roots are colonized really well. With that being said, Oregon is an area where we have more radical soil where the availablity is relatively low. And so that's maybe why we say a really high colonization rate. I'm curious to see what happened California.

Yeah, absolutely. And that was leads to my next question is as far as we know right now what are the conditions that promote AMF populations?

Well we find is in general adding AMF is a different story if you're have you have no fumigation going on your vineyard is relatively healthy on a you don't run into other issues it is really not clear to us if you're inoculated certain you wouls day more beneficial AMF will lead to a better growth. That part of the data or is to your liking because if you apply to to the greenhouse it does not representing what happened in the field if you put in the field it is just really hard to do that you probably need to mix your soil with also inoculum right and and now there's a some product say you can mix it in the liquid and then there were significantly increase the amount of colonization but there's so many different ways to look at the fungus so it's added to a lot of vague area what we're gonna be doing. So but in general, what we're finding is if you have have legume as your cover crop legume is a host for AMF and so they're able to increase kind of both of the AMF population. So if you are thinking about to grow a new you establish a new vineyards and the you have the history nutrient limitation, I will just say use legume would be a good choice. And on the other hand mustard is not AMF host but it has been using cover crop some people were saying it's were released some of the compounds that were feter nemotodes so that's a totally different story. Yeah, so for me the best way it's not really add more AMF and the vine will bemore healthy. A lot of time what happened is in the vineyard there the vines and afff are both pretty happy and they have a good relationship. Actually we tried really hard to to increase nitrogen fertilization rate and able to shake that relationship a little bit so they're bonds are pretty tight and then it's if you are not running into a huge issue that is maybe it's the AMF inoculation and potential is low or that's a certain things in the vineyard and welcome to discuss that was me however interested know. And then the last thinkg that happens, you really it's I want to say most of the time, the AMF in your soil will be sufficient to help your vines to get the fully mobile nutrients like phosphorus, Zinc, copper from the soil.

Craig Macmillan 14:31

Are there ways that I can test to see whether I've hit that threshold?

Dr Tian Tian 14:37

There's a test you can run to see the inoculum potential and then just to say feel filled is a safe, but generally that is happens normally in a research lab. Yeah, there's not any commercial lab I know of there were collector root, route samples, because that's a tedious process. You're collecting the routes and the unit to pick only the fine routes, not all the woody roots you can, the AMF does not live there. Then you need to clean them really well, stain it at a look at it under the scope and evolve in like way, we have a great system and then to great how much the roots got colonized. So while the way we're used mostly to say where a problem occurred is look at leaf petiol and leaf blade, phosphorous status and I felt that's the most easiest way you can now if there's a problem. But the threshold if a nutrient is deficient or sufficient, that's another another topic.

Craig Macmillan 15:36

There's kind of a proxy variable there that I can actually look at my soil phosphorus, it's maybe not mobile, then I can then look at what the what the deficiencies are, sufficiency are in the vine and say, hey, you know, I'm guessing that I don't have a lot of mycorrhizal activity here. arbuscular mycorrhizal activity here because I'm not seeing that phosphorus moving, there's plenty there, but it's not moving into the plant. So that seems like a good kind of guide. What things can go or do if anything to encourage AMF in their soil? Assume its there, relationship with the grapevine. Maybe I'm not seeing the kind of transport that I think I would like to see which would make sense what can I do to help move that process along recurs as populations?

Dr Tian Tian 16:18

Okay, so that's kind of a dive into a really good question. So a lot of times, people weill think AMF is able to assess a different pool of phosphorus as compared to grapevine, that's really not true for AMF or they're assessing all the inorganic phosphorus in the soil. So a lot of times the availability of phosphorus in the soil is changing based on the soil pH if you have a really low pH soil you're probably outline prior to planting to bring up the pH and a like that. But there's no really a particular thinkg you're really do in the vineyard to bolster up the AMF population as long as you have a good canopy growth canopy create a couple of hydrate without carbohydrate AMF wont. It's it's a kind of both it's a fair market trade thing. If the grapevine is because in some of the experimental way wrong and the way keep the nitrogen rate really low so the vines are not really growing and we have say the arbuscular frequency in the fine roots are decreasing. Our understanding of that is so the grapevine says I tried really hard but I just cannot supply the carbohydrate you be happy with. So AMF just said okay, you know what I will do what I can do I'm not as happy as when you give me more but I will do what the job I can possibly offer right. Well you have a decent Canopy Growth and your nitrogen is kind of in the middle they reach you know a happy relationship is, yeah, you know what I am ready to share with my carbohydrate and AMF say okay, I'll give you the maximum benefits. But if you are in the vineyard you have really high nitrogen status which mainly happens in research not really I've noticed that you weren't dump a lot of nitrogen if that happens. And so the vines say maybe I have you know enough ability to grow the roots I think our be less dependent on AMF or the nitrogen you add in actually is regulating some part of AMF and AMF is okay, I feel my function our association our relationship is affected the cell that I decided to colonize les. So actually there's quite a bit of research going on to tease this apart out but so far we don't know which is a key part that is playing in terms of how AMF and the plants out there are regulating each other.

Craig Macmillan 18:44

So we know a little bit but we don't know if mentioned Oregon soils and so at this point, what do we know about AMF and soil and other particular soil that seems to do well and you find it more frequently here there's others were really shows up at all.

Dr Tian Tian 18:57

Yeah, well I was thinking about this question because when we're thinking about soil type that's including a lot of things the texture the pH the organic matter the so so I'm am still really learning about California to the soil here and then I haven't got to dive into the roots yet. So what happened in Oregon is there some more clay and loam soil there generally with AMF of the hyphae of the fungus are pretty powerful in terms of explore the soil and a few have little pore and the roots cannot grow and lead and the hyphae. So when we grow plants in the greenhouse where we have have soil and have sand and the AMF of colonization is about 75 to 95 even 100. And that is a similar to what we got from field where we have more clay loam soil. So I would say soil texture or soil type may have some effects, but I'm not so clear on how big the impact is. In terms of the lifecycle, or the impact of AMF I found the plants.

Craig Macmillan 20:04

So moving to California, welcome, very glad to have you as a farmer advisor in Kern County, and you've been doing some research here recently. That's kind of exciting. Would you want to tell us a little bit a little bit about that things related to nitrogen fertilization and things related to wind quality and nitrogen uptake? You've done some interesting stuff on that.

Dr Tian Tian 20:23

My Nitrogen work is also work I did in in Oregon, and my colleague, Dr. Matthew, Fidelibus in Cardiac Center, and he's doing more work in table grapes. Than they have a bigger project to find a more efficient way and easier way to look into plant to vine nutrient need and how you're going to fertilize. So for my work in Oregon, is to start with a simple question. If you want to add in nitrogen, should you add it in the vineyard or in the winery. Because nitrogen is a essential nutrient for the grapevines but also essential nutrients for the yeast, you can either adding nitrogen to the soil or to the foliage in the vineyard, or you can just keep the nitrogen low in the vineyard and then the added in the winery. And in the winery you can have a two form of nitrogen you can add a one is diammonium phosphate, and then or you can add organic and supplements like those those products and have a lot of people are selling. At the beginning of the research is we want to find a which one relates to about her wine quality in chardonnay and also in Pinot Noir. What previous work in Oregon what my PhD advisor Dr. Paul Schreiner did is he find that maintaining a low nitrogen status in Oregon vineyard is not a bad idea. The yield is less responsive to nitrogen status as compared to the canopy grows the vegetative growth, if you're changing nitrogen application rate, you're saying the response pretty significantly. And then so that is one benefits. And second is from the wines they made they point to the low nitrogen wise actually gave more floral aromas. And then the color is darker. So it's related to a better quality in the sense of you know, sensory and appearance of the wine and all those things. They think lower nitrogen may be the way to go. But that research is did in our research farm where they have put the device in 50 gallon big pots, so they can control the fertilization. It's not really a commercial production setting. So my PhD work is to focus on okay, let's think about that were to add in nitrogen and water to relate to. So what we actually find is adding nitrogen to the soil in the vineyard affected the wine sensory quality more than other treatments, where you've highlighted in the trial, and we say a more clear in fact, in shadow neck than Pinot Noir. The reason is not really a varietals, only varieties are different. It's also because the Chardonnay block where you'd have lower nitrogen depth status to start with. Yeah, so what we're finding is if you're adding nitrogen to the soil, and then the finish wine, the Chardonnay, we're have more tropical aroma, the pashion fruit trait that is a famous for sauvignon blanc producing New Zealand. So a lot of people like those more fruity drink wine, but if you wanted to Oak Chardonnay, and then to maintain a more, the winemaker calls it clean characteristics, and then data where bring more potential during the aging process. We say the soil aliance brings more the rather fruit characters, like a berry, like the cherry, and the plum, or it's kind of in that category, I need to go back to dive into my own notes. But what what generally we find is soil nitrogen application in the bigger cause and effect on the wine thatn foliar application in the vineyard or adding nitrogen in the winery.

Craig Macmillan 24:10

In a positive way?

Dr Tian Tian 24:11

Well, we were considered as winemaker can use it as a tool to make wines in a different style. So if you want your wines to be more fruity or have these and that characters, there's a something you could do just kind of just other just a practice you're already using in the vineyard and to achieve that.

Craig Macmillan 24:31

You talked about two topics here. And so I'm gonna ask the same question regarding the kind of both of them is it what is the one thing that you would advise or would recommend to a grape grower regarding AMF and maybe soil health just kind of in general?

Dr Tian Tian 24:46

Wow. Theres so many things. But in general what I, I have been thinking about this question a lot because now soil health is a big topic, no matter whichever area would dive into and not only grower, consumer wants to have a fruit a coming from, a vineyard that is more sustainable operated. One advice I would have is adding organic matter back to this compost is good. There's a lot of things, it does not need to be so fancy. And it'll work kind of increase the if organic matter basically adding food to the soil microbe microbial community, right, there's different parts, and each of them are playing a role. And we do a lot of bio genome kind of study, who is there, but what they're doing is a series of things we don't know. And so that is a good thing. And the second is, so I'm only allowed to say one thing?

Craig Macmillan 25:47

Go ahead and say a second thing.

Dr Tian Tian 25:51

Okay. So the second thing I always think is just look at do your leaf petiol or blade, nutrient. The threshold stablished by research. That's a lot of work into it, but it is representing a limited number of vineayrd. If you have a record for your own vineyard, you want to feel more comfortable about how you manage the nutrition.

Craig Macmillan 26:15

Now that said, just do one thing I'm going to now I have to ask a follow up question. What's your recommendation for how to add organic matter? What do you think are the best ways to do that?

Dr Tian Tian 26:24

Well, a good question. Actually, I was thinking about I would dive more into that as a research trial. So a lot of growers in our region do, they were just lay on the compost kind of on the surface around the vine. So there's a benefit is actually like, yeah, slowly releasing fertilizer. But some people will say add the planting, you can incorporate it into the soil a little bit, or even after planting, you can incorporate it into the soil. Yes, you're improve part of the roots, but you're also adding nutrients back to the soil where the roots can easily access. The answer is I'm not so sure what is a best idea. And also, now they have a liquid for an organic fertilizer on the market and so there is another way other than to use a compost, there's another form of fertilizer you can add and that is organic certified and then provide organic matter to the soil.

Craig Macmillan 27:16

Now going back to nitrogen, what is one thing that you would recommend to grape grower regarding their nitrogen management?

Dr Tian Tian 27:23

Oh, okay, monitored closely, and they don't fertilize too much. But as of this year, the fertilizer price is increased to 30 to 40%. I think over fertilization is really not an option. But it's more like I feel growers like to take care of babies, you'll you look at their needs, and then you you know, you do the physical exam, to understand what's happening, and then you'll fertilize it based on that. Block to block may be different. And the variety to a variety can be different. And then the more you know about them, and then the more you can help them to gather to the level of of canopy growth and the fruit quality you're shooting for.

Craig Macmillan 28:05

And that's gonna have everything to do with taking those petiol and leaf blade samples and keeping records and then comparing them to what your outcomes are.

Dr Tian Tian 28:13

Not only that, it's also including looking at the vineyard and to walk through to to look at the canopy. If you're thinking about a petiol nutrient test, they're testing concentration, right, and then the threshold established our concentration. But how the concentration of those nutrients is decided by the canopy size. Okay, the vine grows, have some ideas on aware, research are looking into easier ways to monitor in vine rows so you can compare a year to a year. And a lot of times it catches the onset of the problem is really important. And then we're always learning I feel agriculture is a learning business. Every year we'll learn something new and next year we're doing something better.

Craig Macmillan 28:58

That is very wise. Where can people find out more about you and your work?

Dr Tian Tian 29:02

Welcome to visit the UCC Kern website and then also feel free you can find my email my phone there and then feel free to call or email and I'm happy to help if there's any anything I could do to make your life happier and you will be happier.

Craig Macmillan 29:18

And then we will have links to those things in the show notes. I want to thank our guest today Dr. Tian Tian Viticulture Farm Advisor, Cooperative Extension, Kern County UC Cooperative Extension, thank you so much for taking the time to do this interview. And thank you for sharing your knowledge. I think you're gonna be a real benefit to the region. And we really appreciate you having this job.

Dr Tian Tian 29:35

Thank you. That is a so fun to chat about my research work and all those interesting things. The grape world is happening.

Craig Macmillan 29:44

It is a really, really fun and I think that's why people like this podcast, especially me, this is so much fun for me. Anyway, enough about that, you know, thank you so much.

Dr Tian Tian 29:55

Thanks for having me.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

People today are growing increasingly environmentally conscious. WWF commissioned global research by Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) in 2021 (An Eco Awakening) that found that searches for sustainable goods have increased globally by 71% since 2016. If you're not telling consumers that your business is run sustainably, now's the time to start!

Welcome to Marketing Tip Monday with SIP Certified. We know customers are looking for wines labeled as sustainable. While our longer-form episodes help you learn about the latest science and research for the wine industry, these twice-monthly micro podcasts will help you share your dedication to sustainable winegrowing so you can show your customers that you share their values. Today we explore the research that shows that demand for sustainability is soaring.

Whether we're talking about food and beverages, household cleaning products, or beauty and pet products, those with eco-certifications have been experiencing increased sales over the past several years. Sheila Bonini, senior vice president of private sector engagement at WWF US states:

"Sustainable and planet-friendly products used to be a niche market. Today, that's no longer the case. The research backs up what we've seen anecdotally over the years -- demand is there."

Shifting Values

A 2021 NielsenIQ report points out that the pandemic significantly impacted consumer behavior. As the topic of health and well-being was brought front and center by this global health crisis, concern for local communities and the planet as a whole became a central theme in our daily lives. The report shows that consumers have been shifting toward eco-friendly products and companies that share the same value of caring for the health and well-being of our human and non-human resources.

Let Consumers Know You Care!

How can consumers know your wine is produced sustainably if you don't tell them? A team of Penn State researchers suggests that when it comes to sustainable wines, promoting sustainable production methods in marketing efforts may increase consumer willingness to pay more for their wine.

Here are a few ways to promote your sustainable efforts:

• Train your consumer-facing staff on how to talk about sustainability.
• Share your sustainable practices on your website, social media, and marketing materials.
• Put the SIP Certified logo on your bottle!
• Wine Intelligence US SOLA 2021 states that "consumers most strongly associate sustainable wine with protecting the environment and rely on official sustainability endorsement for reassurance."

Learn How to Talk SIP!

We have lots of great resources to help you talk about sustainability from buzz words to SIP Certified 101. Plus, play a game of Jeopardy with your team to make learning about sustainability fun.

Sustainability in Action Training Events

Want to learn how to talk about sustainability with your customers? If you are on California's Central Coast we have three events coming up this fall. Come to an upcoming training.

McIntyre Vineyards Sept. 7 | 9:00 am - 10:00 am

Niner Wine Estates Sept. 21 | 9:30 am - 10:30 am

Check out the show notes for links to this article, PDF downloads to help you talk about sustainability with your customers, an educational game of Jeopardy, and sign up for our biweekly Marketing Tips newsletter. Until next time, this is Sustainable Winegrowing with the Vineyard Team.

References:

• Marketing Tips eNewsletter
• Share SIP 101 With Your Customers: SIP Certified 101 Understanding the Fundamentals
• SIP Buzzwords for Your Consumer-Facing Staff: SIP Buzzwords
• SIP Certified Jeopardy
• SIP Certified Program Overview Presentation
• SIP Certified
• SIP Smart Training online course
• Sustainability in Action Events | Register (August and September 2022)
• Tailor Your Message to Fit Your Consumer: Generational Analysis Report Highlights
• Talk to Your Customers About Your Sustainable Practices: Answering Customers' Top Questions
• Tools to Teach Your Team About Sustainability

Does your team understand what sustainable winegrowing is? Can they talk with your clientele about sustainability? We have made a great online course that will help anyone learn the basics of sustainability and the SIP Certified Program! And, do not worry, you do not need to be in the SIP Certified program to take advantage of this class and it only takes about 30 minutes.

Welcome to Marketing Tip Monday with SIP Certified. We know customers are looking for wines labeled as sustainable. While our longer-form episodes help you learn about the latest science and research for the wine industry, these twice-monthly micro podcasts will help you share your dedication to sustainable winegrowing so you can show your customers that you share their values. Today we help you and your team talk about sustainability with your customers.

Here's what's covered:

What is SIP Certified?

The SIP Smart course starts with a quick background on Vineyard Team's Sustainability in Practice (SIP) Certified program. This introduction will set the foundation for your team's understanding of what your certification represents.

Experience The 3 Ps of Sustainability

The SIP Certified Standards cover nearly 200 practices that protect the people and the planet. How do the hundreds of SIP Certified members implement these practices at their unique properties? In this part of the SIP Smart course, we interview six SIP Certified members to find out!

• Scheid Vineyards wanted to ensure their community had a place to get together and engage in community activity. Greg Gonzalez tells us about how they had part of their vineyard removed and transformed into a soccer complex for the community.
• The subject of water conservation is huge in agriculture! Steve McIntyre of Monterey Pacific gives a quick lesson on moisture monitoring practices to determine when and how much to irrigate winegrape vines.
• Have you ever seen a falconer at work? Here's your chance! In this video interview, Jake Messenger shows us how one man and one falcon can safely and humanely move thousands of starlings off vineyard properties.
• Wondering about how sustainable vines are managed to produce high-quality grapes? Mark Pisoni takes a truly curated approach to each individual vine at Pisoni Vineyards to decide what nutrients, pest management, and farming practices to use to ensure each plant grows the highest quality grapes.
• Reducing global warming emissions is a goal of every sustainable business. Samantha Aguilar shows us solar panels at Cambria Estate Winery that are used to provide, store, and introduce energy back into the grid.
• Now that we know how each individual vine is assessed, Mark Pisoni comes back to talk about the big picture of sustainable farming! Pisoni Vineyards' conservation plan looks at the entire ranch as a whole unit -- not just the areas under cultivation.

Consumer Research

Studies continue to show that consumers are seeking sustainable, ethically produced goods and services more than ever before. In this part of the SIP Smart course, your team can learn about recent research projects that gave us insights into how to help increase consumer awareness of sustainable wines. Are you talking about your sustainable efforts?

Get Your Certificate!

The SIP Smart course concludes with a brief quiz that will help test your team's new SIP Certified knowledge. Everyone who passes gets a certificate to show that they truly are SIP Smart!

Why Stop Here?

We have lots of great resources to help you talk about sustainability from buzz words to SIP Certified 101. Plus, play a game of Jeopardy with your team to make learning about sustainability fun.

Sustainability in Action Training Events

Want to learn how to talk about sustainability with your customers? If you are on California's Central Coast we have three events coming up this fall. Come to an upcoming training.

Niner Wine Estates Sept. 21 | 9:30 am - 10:30 am

Check out the show notes for links to this article, PDF downloads to help you talk about sustainability with your customers, an educational game of Jeopardy, and sign up for our biweekly Marketing Tips newsletter. Until next time, this is Sustainable Winegrowing with the Vineyard Team.

References:

• **SIP Smart Training online course
• Marketing Tips eNewsletter
• Research Shows Soaring Demand for Sustainable
• Share SIP 101 With Your Customers: SIP Certified 101 Understanding the Fundamentals
• SIP Buzzwords for Your Consumer-Facing Staff: SIP Buzzwords
• SIP Certified Jeopardy
• SIP Certified Program Overview Presentation
• SIP Certified
• Sustainability in Action Events | Register (August and September 2022)
• Tailor Your Message to Fit Your Consumer: Generational Analysis Report Highlights
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There has been a big surge in wine consumption on a macro level in recent years. California production is down due to both the removal of acres and climate challenges. Because national production cannot keep up with demand, imports have increased. Dr. Christopher Thornberg, Founding Partner at Beacon Economics and Director of UC Riverside Center for Economic Forecasting looks at big picture economic themes in the wine industry. From differentiation with sustainability, to an economic perspective on pricing water use, to the need for regional marketing efforts. Collaborating with the industry, local partners, and government can bolster the success for all people coming together to make great wines.

References:

• 83: Sustainability: An Advantage in any Market (Podcast)
• Beacon Economics
• California and U.S. Wine Production (Wine Institute)
• Central Coast Economic Forecast
• Christopher Thornberg's Biography
• Eco-Certifications Increase Sales
• Economic Impact of California Wine (Wine Institute)
• SIP Certified
• Sustainable Ag Expo November 14-16, 2022 | Use code PODCAST for $50 off
• UC Riverside Center for Economic Forecasting & Development

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Transcript

Craig Macmillan 0:00

My guest today is Dr. Christopher Thornberg. He is a founding partner of Beacon Economics and he's the director of the UC Riverside Center for Economic Forecasting. Dr. Thornberg, thank you for being with us.

Dr. Christopher Thornberg 0:11

Great to be here.

Craig Macmillan 0:12

You are an economic forecaster, macro economic forecaster. And you have a lot of experience in all kinds of things. This is a wine show, obviously, wine and grapes. How do you see the role of wine in the bigger kind of economic picture in the United States?

Unknown Speaker 0:29

Yes, you know, is interesting. I'm a macro economist, I'm based here in California, I spend a lot of my time talking about big things, interest rates, inflation, consumer spending. But at the same time as a California based guy is a guy who's done lots of talks in wine country, I've also become relatively cognizant, shall we say, of the ebbs and flows of Ag and the wine economy in general, right here. In California. Obviously, when you think about places like Sonoma or Napa, it's incredibly important part of not only local production, but local tourism. And as such, you always have to walk, you know, sort of watch what's happening in these spaces in these industries. Now, of course, when you think about California wine, when you think about US wine, from a macro perspective, there are two things that are happening simultaneously over the last couple of years. The first thing has happened is another big surge in wine consumption, you think about the history of wine, we saw big gains and consumption in the early part of the century, it plateaued for a number of years. And all of a sudden, over the last few years, yet again, wine consumption on a per person basis is going up, people are buying good wine. So we know from a consumption standpoint, demand is strong. The other interesting part of this, of course has to do with the fact that California wine production is down. It's down, in part because of the removal of some acreage. But it's also of course down because we've had not exactly the best weather over the last couple of years. And so you do have this interesting situation whereby California production has not been able to keep up with, if you will, national demand. One of the results of that, of course, has been an enormous surge of imports into the United States. So so times are good from an external standpoint, but obviously producers here in the state are facing some substantial headwinds, whether we're talking about land, whether climate labor, and of course, the real question is, is how does this thing shake out? Where does this thing hit?

Craig Macmillan 2:25

That's what everybody's wondering, you know, the investment in vineyards and wineries is substantial. Everybody wants one I've discovered in my consulting career, everybody wants to get in not always such a great idea that takes a lot of capital. And it takes a long time. Many wineries are losing money for 10 years or more before you even get close to breaking even depending on the product and the place. I have had many conversations about well, what can we do to kind of protect us, you know, what can we do to kind of, you know, get it get ahead of imports? What can we do to make our product special? So that can we be protected from some of this? And I would love to know your thoughts on how can a producer of a good like wine or wine grapes goes into wine? What things can they do to try to gain a bigger market share, again, something like imports or how to protect themselves against losing more of the marketplace.

Unknown Speaker 3:16

I don't think California wines are losing market share. Like if you look at the numbers, for example, crop prices, they're way up, they're doing very well. Sonoma's prices are very high Napa's prices are very high. I mean, to give you a sense, remember I get I focus on the entire state. And I always have to point out that there are more acres of wine grape production in Fresno by a good margin than there are in Sonoma, Napa combined. Now a lot of people outside the state are shocked by that. But then I have to point out you know, California box-o-wine on some the bottom shelf there in the supermarket. That's all made in Fresno. It's a perfectly reasonable part of market as the case may be. But it's a different kind of situation. It is a commodity product, as opposed to the name brand products that are made, of course in the vintage regions. And so when we have this conversation, the question is which part of the conversation are we going to have? Right? Are we talking about the prestige dub? Are we talking about the commodity stuff? Obviously, where you're located, you'd say the prestige stuff is, is more important, in a lot of ways. The prestige wines are doing fine, but the prestige wine industry in general has a problem. And the problem is you already said it that people want to be in the industry. It is a an ego industry. Everybody who makes a gazillion in finance wants to have a winery. That's how you impress your friends. Correct. You're in Wall Street. And so you do have a lot of guys coming in. Primarily guys, I appreciate the sexism involved there but I think we know that the guys are coming in buying these. These ego wineries, if you will, are predominantly men. What they're doing is flooding the market with a tremendous amount of great products in a very odd way, because they don't care as much about profit margins. Now what happens, of course, is, if you are that small winemaker who doesn't want to go commodity, you're the small one winemaker who wants to make a quality product, you suddenly find yourself between the rock and proverbial rock and the hard place. The rock are the commodity guys, and the hard place are those rich guys who don't care about a profit, and how you navigate in between those. And, you know, as a macro economist, I'll be the first person to tell you I don't have any clue.

Craig Macmillan 5:36

Business Strategy thing there.

Unknown Speaker 5:37

It obviously is a narrow path you have to walk in, and in general, they do I know enough small, high quality wine growers, you know, you can do it. But you got to be modest in terms of your ability to, shall we say, have great success here, you're going to have to be very careful as you navigate that.

Craig Macmillan 5:55

You know, this actually, this reminds me of a conversation I've had many, many times, and that is how do we make ourselves stand out? Yeah, we need people to know us, we need people to respect that we do. And there's different kinds of ways you can do that. You can try to get people to say, oh, this is the best quality product, everybody jumps up and down. But how do you communicate that that's tough, you need scores, reviews, things like that, that you have no control over. Or you can say it's a price based thing. So we're going to try to be a bargain brand, we're gonna have this level of quality at this lower price, right? Makes sense. But there's also lots of other kinds of signaling something called virtue, virtue signaling, where you can say, hey, there's this other thing about us, that makes us really special. And some of it has to do with maybe family, a lot of wineries really focus on the fact that it's a family business. And you know, we're we're kind of the working class heroes, even though we have this amazing property in this edifice, winery bootstraps and that's great. There's also virtue signaling around sustainability, I have kind of wondered whether that signaling how effective that is. So for instance, this organization Vineyard Team has a sustainability certification called SIP sustainability in practice, and lots of folks have gotten certified folks who are making really good quality wine, folks whose farming practices I am familiar with, and we also certified wineries and they're doing a great job. One of the things I've always wondered is how responsive are consumers to things like virtue signaling? Do you have an idea how how people respond to that kind of thing?

Unknown Speaker 7:21

Yeah, no, no, no, listen, there's a whole literature on this in economics. We know virtue signaling is incredibly important in more industries than just wine. I mean, whether your whole foods, pretending you're organic, because they're not really in hand, or, or in so many other places. virtue signaling is a singular part of business, particularly today in this era, where there's a lot of concerns about the environment where things are going. So to me, I think it's something that the industry continues to need to invest in, along with what I would call the other kind of branding items. One of the things that got me into wine in general was my explorations of California wine country, which again, we all have to keep in mind. I think a lot of wineries find their best clients are often the ones who wander into their winery for that tasting. And one of the questions is, is Nomad as a region, making sufficient efforts on making wine tasting available to folks on a more regular basis? How are they going about especially now in the post COVID area, when if people suddenly have a myriad of potential attractions available to them? How is the region standing out there among all these other things that are now available to people after a couple years of closure and say, Hey, no, no, no, you still need to come back here. You need to come to Sonoma. Get up here to Healdsburg get out there to, you know, and Russian River products and how do you encourage them to be there? So I think that aspect right now has to be heavily in the minds of, of local development.

Craig Macmillan 8:59

So one of the things that I've observed, certainly on the Central Coast, and I think it applies in other areas as well, definitely, you have vineyards that are really production oriented, and selling their grapes out of the area, places like Napa Sonoma, for the Central Coast as an example. Then you have a couple of pioneers that try and say, hey, we're gonna keep some of this, they do well, that brings other people into the game. And then eventually, there's a need for other kind of other auxillary businesses and activities to come along. So you need hotels, you need restaurants, you get horseback riding and balloon rides, and then people start to come for a variety of reasons, as well as not just wine or even if they come for wine, they start to enjoy other things. How important do you think that is for creating a stable marketplace for the wine industry or encouraging the growth of the market for wine?

Unknown Speaker 9:46

Yeah, it listen, it's incredibly important for a number of reasons. Obviously, ultimately, your best customers are the customers who come to the winery who join your wine club who get that every three months case of wine. Every winery wants those direct people and the direct people are the ones are going to show up in a room. So you say you need to be part of a concerted effort locally to build the wine tourism industry. And yes, by the way, that means you have to have other attractions as well, as anyone who's gone wine tasting can tell you, after about four or five wineries, you're not tasting much of anything anymore. Yeah, yeah, you really need to have other things to do for the rest of the day. And that means having again, an economic development strategy locally that tries to build up the entire tourism industry, it's the restaurants, it's the hotels, secondary attractions, and how do you tie them all together? And how do you build those regional collaborations that benefit everybody? How do you build the money necessary for that? The other thing, of course, ultimately, is that by doing that, you're driving the long run brand. You know, everybody knows Napa, you go anywhere in the world, you say Napa, people know Napa, you get to Paso Robles, there's some awareness, certainly better than it was 20 years ago, but nowhere near that of Napa. But over time, as you get more clients, high end clients who were serving the local wine at a dinner party, other people get aware of it. And it builds up until the point that you to have, if you will, almost that international reputation of a place like Napa. Now, what's interesting is, you know, when we think about this, particularly here in California, there is what I would call those those organizational outreach efforts. How do we make this all work for everybody outside, but here in California, we have an interesting problem is we don't make it very easy for local governments to do these kinds of things. Because here in California, for example, we don't build enough housing. You know, the Paso Robles region, for example, is shockingly devoid of multifamily housing, but it's multifamily housing you need for those young folks who are just trying to break into the industry, for the folks who are going to work in your wine tasting room or work in these restaurants. If you're not building multifamily, how are you going to build your labor force and able to be able to man, all these tourist operations, it has to be really a combined vision, because there's a lot of things that go sideways in these efforts. And ultimately, if you will diminish the the all you know, it's interesting, I'm an economist. And so at some level, I always come to the conversation with a big role to be played by the market, right. That's what economists are all about the market. But what we're talking about here is a brand reputation, which is a social product, we own it jointly, if you're in Pasco, if you're in Sonoma, if you're in the Finger Lakes, if you're in, in Walla Walla, Washington, you all own commonly that brand, and you have to have a local conversation to make sure you're all doing the right thing to support that brand. And that means you desperately need local, some sort of local cooperation. Typically public doesn't have to be could be a nonprofit, or public private partnership, whatever it is, but you need to have those institutions there to drive the whole thing forward. The good news is yet again, wine is one of those things that kind of attracts everybody's attention. It's almost like Hollywood, but slightly less evil. And if you can get people interested, because it's fun, it gets people to the table. But you have to have that regional collaboration, you got to make sure people are there. And it takes these kinds of community conversations.

Craig Macmillan 13:31

Are there organizations, people positions, that should be could be leadership in that process? And what role did the producers themselves have in this process, because like you said, I need to have folks who can work for me at a wage that I can afford to pay. And quite frankly, I need it to be stable. I don't want to put a year of in training, and it's very specialized thing, and then have them bail, and have to start all over again. I want to have employees that are happy, and they're confident they're settled. So what role does something like the grower community having this effect? I mean, do you go to meetings and say, hey, we need housing? Do you go to the politicians and say, hey, we were gonna lobby you to take this seriously? What's the strategy?

Unknown Speaker 14:13

My personal advice on that is, again, every region should have some sort of public private partnership, right? You build up some sort of local wine tourism chamber, if you will. And you bring in public plank, private clients, you put money into a kitty and use that to push forward the kind of conversations necessary, whether it's about branding, tourism or local, if you will, development needs, you got to have everybody at the table for that kind of coordination and cooperation, for better or for worse. The nice thing about government in this particular case is they can enforce if you will, some sort of fairness and supportive such an organization. One of the things I always worry about when it comes to the strictly private nonprofits I get like a Chamber of Commerce is the tendency for free riding, you're always gonna have two winemakers who are going to be very happy to, shall we say, take advantage of making money off the name brand, but they're not going to participate in the in that social efforts. And it's good to have a little authority, if you will, to make sure everybody's contributing at some level to ultimately, what's good for the social good. So that's helpful as well. And of course, that one of the bigger issues here has to do with how such organizations deal with whatever called some of the broader pressures we're dealing with. Because like, when you talk about housing, it's not just ag, right? It's everybody. And they have to be there to bring wines point of view to the table, when you have planning meetings, when you're discussing the lack of multifamily that has to be the voice of the community at those particular tables. That's, of course, particularly profound here in California. But there's been a big decline in wine production state over the last couple of years. And it's because we've had some pretty hideous weather, incredibly dry. We know we are in a big water shortage, the ag industry in general has got to be part of the solution to water shortages here in the state. And by the way, it behooves the wind industry to be part of the process to get ag to the table. You know, it's interesting, when you think about the water shortages that we're dealing with right now, a lot of folks point at, say, for example, nuts, there's, that's a big enemy. No, until we're growing nuts, how dare we grow nuts in this state,.

Craig Macmillan 16:30

So many gallons to produce a pound almonds, that was the big one a couple of years ago.

Unknown Speaker 16:33

But what's the value of that pound of almond see, you have to think about the dollars coming off the trees coming off the vine or treesout of the ground, it's not gallons per pound that matters, it's gallons per dollar that matters. And the problem you have with water in the state of California, is this just allocated on the basis of 120 year old agreements, there's no economic logic used to assign where that water is used. It's not just oh, take it away from the farmers to get into the cities, we have to understand that high value crops suffer as well. So it behooves everybody in the ag industry to come to the table to have these conversations. Because if you're not there, if you're if you're part of this, what's almost seems to me to be a boycott of negotiations over water, that's what ag is, right now, we're just boycotting this, if you even if you even bring it up, we're gonna we're gonna ask you, do you think people should stop eating eventhough that's a ridiculous question, you can't do that. You got to be at the table, you got to acknowledge the problems, acknowledges solutions and work towards a compromise. And again, I think the wine industry, the wine grape industry, here in the state has a lot to say about this. And they should be part of that conversation that should be part of pushing that conversation.

Craig Macmillan 18:02

So this is a really interesting division they've seen philosophically amongst growers, and also other areas. If I have pumps, if I have wells on my land, the water that comes out of that, well, is that a private good? Is that benefits me, and is not somebody else's property? Or is it a public good, that I'm taking advantage of and we're all going to hit a tragedy of the commons? Well, okay, I'm using a bunch of terminology that and that's where a lot of conflict comes from is if I'm treating it as a private good, or am I being quote unquote, responsible. You hear people say that, and this treating it like a public good, then what kind of benefit am I getting for what I'm doing? So I very much get your point, I would love to hear a little bit more about if I am drawing a public good and much like grazing sheep on the commons, where it came from, but I'm contributing to the economy. I'm hiring people, I'm paying wages and paying taxes, protecting this land from some other use. That's another thing.

Unknown Speaker 18:58

I don't I don't like that term at all.

Craig Macmillan 19:00

Okay, go ahead. Hit me.

Unknown Speaker 19:03

You're protecting the land from another use. What does that mean?

Craig Macmillan 19:06

Oh, it's an open space argument. If you if you consider vineyards to be open space, then I'm keeping this land in open space, as opposed to letting a big housing development go in.

Unknown Speaker 19:15

Okay, well, first of all, we have more wealth, way more wind acreage, and we have need for new housing in California at the moment. So I'm a little dubious of that specific argument. And I think that the whole idea of market economics is it allows whatever scarce resource to be used at its greatest possible potential. If a hunk of land is more valuable as houses than it is winegrapes, then we should be building housing there. That's the logical economic outcome. Unless there's some sort of externality we can point to and there may well be there's a value to open space that often doesn't get priced into these conversations. That's a completely different debate for a completely I think different show is as the case may be. But in general, look, let me put it this way. Water is a public good. It just is. We know that. All right, nobody owns the water, the water under your land is part of a massive aquifer. It's not just under your land is sloshes over the place, just like the river running by your farm, it has people upstream and downstream. And you don't want the people upstream of you taking all the water before it gets to you. I don't think you should be allowed to take all the water for gets the next person down the way, we again have to have a cooperative solution for how to deal with this water question. Now in general, if we acknowledge it's a public good, there should be a public price for the product. It's as simple as that people should be paying for the water they use, which they don't do in this state. At any real level, our water agencies charge people on the basis of cost, which is not a market price, it's not the relevant figure, we need to price water at a level that will basically constrain usage to a reasonable sustainable amount. Now guess what? The good news for wine grape growers, particularly for higher end wine grape growers, is you'll be able to afford a higher price. Why? Because you're producing a high profit margin usually, sometimes water is not your cost, you could do it. Whereas folks would probably get pushed out as yeah, I would anticipate that some hay farmers may no longer grow hay. Now, by the way, before we feel sad for the Hey, farmers, remember, if I'm talking about using a market, that, hey, farmers are going to get paid for not using their water. And by the way, they will almost assuredly make a hell of a lot more money selling their water than they are selling the hay. Yet again, we end up with a good social outcome all the way around. This is a win win win proposition that I'm suggesting here. But again, it's amazing the mental lock we have when it comes to having conversations about applying even basic market mechanisms to water consumption. When as a quote unquote capitalist economy, we seem to rely on markets to supply most of our basic day to day goods. It's interesting. Yeah.

Craig Macmillan 22:14

So this is just my perspective. I'm curious, would you agree that there's a lot of resistance to the idea of paying for water?

Unknown Speaker 22:19

We already pay for water. I mean, everybody pays a little bit, but obviously, the are wildly different. What I pay for my water at my house in Los Angeles is completely different than what the guy's paying for water for hay in Imperial County, which is different than what the winegrape farmer in Fresno is paying for his water. So we all pay completely different prices. For the most part, those prices are way below what they should be. Really all ends up being some bureaucrat out there saying okay, well you're paying under so you can only consume X amount. Again, that's the wrong way of doing things. We really want prices to be more equilibrated. It means allowing the market to set some sort of price, and then allowing the various market participants to purchase what they can economically do at that price level. Is it complicated? Not to go off topic here. But let me just your typical, I've done some of these calculations, your typical hay farmer Imperial County makes about from best case scenario, 15 to maybe $50 per acre foot of water, they used to grow hay, right? There is debate going on in Orange County right now about opening and desal plant, that desal plant to be clear will produce water at something on the order of 2000 to $2,300 per acre foot. And of course, that doesn't even include the environmental damage such plants create because they are bad for the oceans. We know that. Why would we do that? Why is it Orange County's paying those farmers in Imperial I don't know. let's give them $400 An acre foot that's roughly 10 times what they're making growing hay. By the way, that still leaves you $1,600 An acre foot to do environmental remediation. Move the water to Orange County. Economic remediation if you think parts of the Imperial County will suffer because there's less hay being grown. I'm not sure what it would be but maybe there's somebody getting hurt their. To me there's so much money being left over how can this state be anything but better off with that transaction taking place? The only as far as I can tell the only agents who suffer are the cows and horses in Korean and Japan are going to be denied their lunch.

Craig Macmillan 24:42

You do have to put the frame on you do have to put on the box. You know what area are we looking at and what's a rational box to draw? And then who are the players in that box and what's the resource and how much resources there right here are you talking about the making a market for Wwater. Aren't markets, volatile, unpredictable, potentially dangerous? I mean, that's a value loaded word. I know, but.

Unknown Speaker 25:09

What does that mean? Exactly? We have markets for apartments and market for home and markets, gas markets for milk. They work everywhere. What really were afraid of a market. Since when? This is a market economy. There are places that markets don't work very well. I agree with that, by the way, health care markets horrendous. We don't we don't need markets running health care. That's a separate conversation for a different podcast. I'd you know, I just opened up a massive can there. But when it comes to this, isn't this isn't healthcare, water is water. And markets make sense.

Craig Macmillan 25:44

Again, how would a group of growers engage that? Can you see wine grape growers being leaders because their crop is different. That's again, one of these things we've had danger in a multi-ag, in multi crop counties is like the wine folks, you're gonna like, hey, we don't use anywhere near what these guys use. But you don't want to throw that out there. You want to throw that stone because we need to get them involved right in the plan. And yet winemakers have a couple of things going for them. Number one, they have prestige. So I think that they get attention. They have a commonality that I think holds them together better than other crops, because everybody's in the same boat. And yeah, commodity growers are in the same boat. But I've seen this in wine where people are a little bit more willing to get together. There is a lot of conflict within the group, obviously. Can you see growers being proactive towards this process and saying, hey, we think this is a good idea, we think this will not only help us we'll have everybody else does the sustainability aspect here because people want to be sustainable. So they're going to be looking for things that say, Hey, this is going to help us have water and also we're gonna be able to use it equitably. Can you see the movement there? What does that look like? Or have you seen examples of this kind of thing in other situations?

Unknown Speaker 25:44

listen, where your hometown Paso Robles, the classic case of this, right, because we know there that there's our growers and buyers who are heavily involved with local water conversations. They can have an they should have a seat at the table, whether it's local, or statewide, or national. The industry's sustainability, at some level is ultimately tied to the sustainability of overall agriculture in the state, just like your sustainability, as a brand is going to be tied to your local branding and tourist efforts. You have to understand the broader macro nature of the world you exist in and be part of those broader processes. By the way, what I just said is true, not just for conversations about water, or housing, it's conversations about politics in general, not to go too far off into left field here. But a lot of Americans right now feel completely alienated from politics as it exists right now in the US, you look at both parties who are talking about topics and conversations that seem almost completely bizarrely foreign to your actual day to day living your world. And you wonder how we got here. And again, it's a function of a lack of participation. We are social creatures, we exist within a community. And when the community starts going directions, we don't understand, then we have to look in the mirror and ask, is it because I'm not being part of those conversations? And if so, how do I become part of those conversations? How do I get involved? And the answer is being a leader yourself, or supporting organizations that are going to go out and lead on your behalf. It's about being involved, which, again, when you're trying to build a brand, when you're trying to make sure you have enough workers on the wine farm and in the wine tasting shop, I appreciate how hard that is. If you're relying on somebody else to make the right decision, well, then you're not going to be able to, shall we say have a moral high ground to complain when the decision is not what should happen have happened. We have to remember that we have to remember that the that the broader ag community, wine producers wine grape producers can be part of this broader conversation. And indeed they should.

Craig Macmillan 29:16

And perhaps they need to be.

Dr. Christopher Thornberg 29:18

Yes, I think so.

Craig Macmillan 29:19

We're talking about an imperative here. Yeah. Yeah. And that probably applies to lots of other things. We've seen it with habitat. We've seen it around pesticide use. We've seen our worker equity, and a lot of really positive things have happened in the last 20 or 30 years. This is the next one. I go back and I look at sustainability reports. And it was from various companies and I see lots of stuff about habitat. I see a lot of stuff about workers, electricity starting to show up more and more. They almost never touch on pesticides. That's like the third rail, which is too bad because the industry has been doing a much better job last 30 years than they did but then the one thing that I always noticed is missing is water. There's nothing about really what are we doing about water in some cases they do, don't get me wrong. Some folks are very out there saying, Hey, look at what we're doing, but a lot of them are not. And I think that may have to become, like you said, part of the identity and big focus for how people behave, and getting involved at different levels.

Dr. Christopher Thornberg 30:11

And now more than ever, because we all know that California is drying out as part of the climate change that's around us. We still have lots of water. You know, I keep saying I've always say that we don't have, if you will, a drought in as much as we really don't have enough water to go around. We do if you actually sat down and applied basic water conservation efforts, you would actually see we have plenty of water in this day, we just have to use a smarter, that's where we just fall over. Because we don't seem to be able to get to that conversation that ag can change, they can continue to thrive through this process. You we got to stop the whole, every time there's any kind of conversation about change. The first place we go is existential threat, you know?

Craig Macmillan 31:05

Yeah, exactly. Oh, yeah. Threat to my life. That's a tough one. That's a tough one. It's a very basic kind of socio sociological, psychological reaction. You know, the change is like, Oh, my lifestyles threatened. Me, and my family has done this for 1000 years, whatever, which completely aligns the fact that you okay, your people been on the land for 150 years, but they weren't wearing sneakers. You're wearing sneakers now. They weren't wearing blue jeans, you're wearing blue jeans. They didn't have diesel powered tractors, you have diesel powered tractors now. And all of those things, some of them are about just changes in society and the way people dress and and culture, but also a lot of it's about efficiency.

Dr. Christopher Thornberg 31:42

And you didn't have 40 living in California, and you didn't have a 20 year drought behind you. The world is not same nor should your life be.

Craig Macmillan 31:53

And it's not gonna be Yeah, well, that's great. This is pretty much the time that we've got, I would love to just sit down and like have a beer with you. This is I was gonna, I was gonna ask you about Veblen goods. But I think that might be a totally different show, not a different episode. What is what is one thing you'd recommend to our listeners just in general.

Dr. Christopher Thornberg 32:13

I exist in a world as an economist right now, where there are economic realities. And then there are public narratives. In the 25, 30 years, I've been studying the economy, never have I seen such a massive gap between public narratives and the economic data. How many times does the newspaper use the term cliff were at the cliff edge, we're on the constantly right, and we have panicked ourselves to ridiculous point. And as a result of that, we paralyzed ourselves for fears that don't actually exist. So my one advice to everybody out there is turn off the crisis mode, you got to turn it off, let it go. The world changes, we all have to sit down and understand that. And from a community standpoint, we could figure out the best way to move forward, if we can have conversations about how we all adapt together. But if everybody's screaming under the world, everybody's screaming crisis, everybody's creating an existential threat where it doesn't exist. Again, we're paralyzed. Thus, we cannot respond to crises. Thus, the crises become that much worse. By not allowing that mentality to exist, we can actually take these things on, and all be better off, but it means Yeah, it means taking a step back and being a little less selfish and, and a little more willing to hear other people's opinions and outputs and and moving accordingly. We live in and I think we live in a period of time where people are having a tough time with that. And that's we again, you gotta look in the mirror.

Craig Macmillan 33:48

That is great advice. Very insightful. Where can people find out more about you?

Unknown Speaker 33:52

Yeah, well, Beacon Economics, beaconecon.com. We do all sorts of stuff. You'll find some stuff I write on a regular basis, which goes around to a lot of these topics we touched on here, so www.beaconecon.com.

Craig Macmillan 34:05

Our guest today was Dr. Christopher Thornberg, founding partner of Beacon Economics and director of EC UC Riverside Center for Economic Forecasting. Dr. Thornberg, thank you so much. This has been a real pleasure. This has been really really fun for me.

Unknown Speaker 34:18

Absolutely. Me as well. I enjoyed the conversation.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

The warm summer months attract tourists and locals alike to the beautiful wineries and tasting rooms of popular winegrowing regions. With this predictable increase in consumer traffic in mind, it's a good idea to educate your consumer-facing staff about your sustainable practices so they are prepared to share your brand's values with new and returning patrons while serving up your latest creations.

Welcome to Marketing Tip Monday with SIP Certified. We know customers are looking for wines labeled as sustainable. While our longer-form episodes help you learn about the latest science and research for the wine industry, these twice-monthly micro podcasts will help you share your dedication to sustainable winegrowing so you can show your customers that you share their values. Today we bring your tools to teach your team about sustainability.

Why talk about sustainability?

Training your staff to talk about your brand's value of sustainability is just as important as training them to talk about your wine selection. Consumers today are becoming more interested in companies and products that protect the health of the planet and the people who inhabit it, and are even willing to pay more for a product that has a certification to back up these claims! It's clear that sustainability sells, and plain and simple, you can't sell something you know nothing about.

Having staff that is well educated and prepared to answer your customers' questions will also help to uphold your brand's good reputation. Customer service can make or break a winetasting experience. If your customer-facing staff is educated and prepared to engage in conversation with your customers, there is a greater chance of garnering positive reviews, earning return customers, and attracting new ones through word-of-mouth.

Let's go over a few good topics for your consumer-facing staff to become familiar with in order to increase their confidence in talking about your brand's sustainability efforts.

Get comfortable with the sustainability (SIP) Buzzwords

If you've been around for a while, you're probably already familiar with our 6 SIP Buzzwords for Your Consumer-Facing Staff. In case you haven't or if you're new to the world of SIP Certified, here's a recap:

1. The 3 P's

People: practices protecting human resources and employee well-being

Planet: stewardship of natural resources and the environment

Prosperity: a solid business plan with long-term goals, and dedication to ensuring future generations are protected through all business practices

1. Always Evolving

SIP Certified standards and members' business practices improve as new science, technology, and research becomes available

1. Sound Business Practices

The company employs ethical practices that treat employees and the community with care and respect

1. Continuing Education

Company staff strive to stay up to date with the latest laws and regulations, as well as science, technology, and research

1. Integrated Pest Management

Using beneficial insects, raptors, and plant-enriching cover crops to mitigate pests and other harmful organisms

1. Wildlife Corridors

Providing safe passage for wildlife through vineyards in order to not compromise their natural habitat

Print the Infographic below to post in your staff area, or send it directly to your customer-facing staff so they can familiarize themselves with the terms!

Talk about your specific sustainability practices

When consumers see evidence of sustainable practices such as solar panels, owl boxes, grazing animals, and cover crops, they may ask their tasting room attendant what these are all about. We encourage you to create educational material for your staff that is specific to your brand and your practices so they are prepared to give accurate and descriptive explanations.

Stay tuned for our upcoming Marketing Tip where we'll give examples of how other SIP Certified brands educate their staff!

SIP Certified or sustainability vs Organic

One of the most common questions we get when we visit tasting rooms for a training is "what is the difference between SIP Certified and Organic?" Simply put, organic certification addresses farming methods. According to USDA.gov, these include "soil quality, animal raising practices, pest and weed control, and use of additives," as well as the prohibition of "artificial preservatives, colors, or flavors."

SIP Certified takes a holistic approach to winegrowing. In addition to addressing soil conservation, habitat preservation, integrated pest management, and water quality, brands that are SIP Certified sustainable extend their practices to other realms of business including social equity, water conservation, and quality, energy conservation and efficiency, pollution and waste, and business management, to name a few. You will find a number of SIP Certified vineyards that are also certified Organic or incorporate organic farming methods. (The complete 2022 SIP Certified Standards can be read here.)

The Owl Postcard is a great visual representation for comparing SIP Certified, Organic, and Biodynamics. Visit the shop to order a stack for your tasting room staff to use while answering this common question! All POS materials are included in your SIP Certified membership.

Sustainability in Action Training Events

Want to learn how to talk about sustainability with your customers? If you are on California's Central Coast we have three events coming up this fall. Come to an upcoming training.

Riverbench Vineyard Aug. 17 | 9:30 am - 10:30 am

McIntyre Vineyards Sept. 7 | 9:00 am - 10:00 am

Niner Wine Estates Sept. 21 | 9:30 am - 10:30 am

Check out the show notes for links to this article, more posts filled with the latest social media tips to grow your following, and to sign up for our biweekly Marketing Tips newsletter. Until next time, this is Sustainable Winegrowing with the Vineyard Team.

References: Talking SIP Infographics:

• • SIP Buzzwords for Your Consumer-Facing Staff: SIP Buzzwords
  • Tailor Your Message to Fit Your Consumer: Generational Analysis Report Highlights
  • Talk to Your Customers About Your Sustainable Practices: Answering Customers' Top Questions
  • Share SIP 101 With Your Customers: SIP Certified 101 Understanding the Fundamentals
• SIP Smart Training online course
• SIP Certified Jeopardy
• SIP Certified Program Overview Presentation
• Sustainability in Action Events | Register
• Marketing Tips eNewsletter
• SIP Certified

As researchers were creating a training procedure to identify smoke tainted wines, they made a breakthrough discovery that links a class of sulfur-containing compounds called thiophenols to the undesirable ashy flavors found in impacted grapes. Elizabeth Tomasino, Associate Professor, Department of Food Science and Technology at Oregon State University explains that early research believed that the culprit for smoke taint was phenols with an alcohol group. But just adding volatile phenols to untainted wines did not produce the undesirable BBQ flavors. Research is still young but this discovery could help researchers come up with more effective mitigation strategies.

References:

143: Can Barrier Sprays Protect Against Smoke Taint in Wine? (Podcast)

Australian Wine Research Institute Smoke Taint webpage

Elizabeth Tomasino

Grower-Winery Contracts and Communications about Smoke Exposure to Oregon's 2020 Wine Grape Harvest

Key Information on Smoke Effect in Grapes and Wine: What can be done to identify and reduce smoke effect in grape and wine production? (Western Australia Agriculture Authority)

"Oregon State researchers discover compounds contributing to smoke taint in wine and grapes" (Press release)

SIP Certified

Sustainable Ag Expo November 14-16, 2022 | Use code PODCAST for $50 off

Techniques for Mitigating the Effects of Smoke Taint While Maintaining Quality in Wine Production: A Review (Academic article)

Get More

Subscribe wherever you listen so you never miss an episode on the latest science and research with the Sustainable Winegrowing Podcast. Since 1994, Vineyard Team has been your resource for workshops and field demonstrations, research, and events dedicated to the stewardship of our natural resources.

Learn more at www.vineyardteam.org.

Transcript

Craig Macmillan 0:00

My guest today is Elizabeth Tomasino. She is an associate professor in the Department of Food Science and Technology at Oregon State University. Elizabeth, thanks for taking time to speak with us today.

Elizabeth Tomasino 0:12

Well, thank you for having me. It's it's been a little crazy with conferences are back in person this year. So I'm actually at the Institute of Food Technology Conference in Chicago right now.

Craig Macmillan 0:23

Well, thanks for taking the time.

Elizabeth Tomasino 0:25

Oh, it's fun and lots of interesting information to talk about.

Craig Macmillan 0:29

The reason we asked you to be on the show is you and your colleagues to make kind of an interesting and possibly really amazing discovery regarding smoke impact on grapes and how that translated into Smoke taint in wines. First just so everyone is on the same page, what's the very simple definition what is smoke taint?

Elizabeth Tomasino 0:46

Smoke taint is essentially if there is a wildfire, lots of smoke in the air, that smoke gets into the vineyard, when there are grapes on the vine, the grapes can absorb the smoke compounds that smell like smoke. They then get sort of bound up in the grapes. So you don't you can't taste anything, but they're there. And then during winemaking, they're released. So all of a sudden, you can get a very smoky, ashy aftertaste in your wine. And if it's strong enough, it can be very negative for quality.

Craig Macmillan 1:15

And when are the grapes most vulnerable?

Elizabeth Tomasino 1:17

So this, is this is up for debate a bit generally it is thought after verasion. But some varieties might be different. There is some research going into this that some varieties might be susceptible earlier, and others may be more susceptible later during the year.

Craig Macmillan 1:33

There's been a lot of activity going on globally, Australia's done a ton of work. And we've got a lot of work going on on the west coast. It's really exciting to see the collaborative work between the different states and the different university systems addressing this problem. Obviously, a couple of years ago, it was devastating in Northern California. And we also had issues along the central coast here, which led us to wonder what was going on because people in San Luis County were affected by smoke from Monterey County. So it was traveling a long way, that really, really makes everybody extra nervous. Your work recently has identified a new class of compounds associated with smoke impact that correct?

Elizabeth Tomasino 2:11

Yes, we've been looking for it for a while. So some of my speciality in research and wine research is figuring out the compositional elements that cause specific sensory. So smells, tastes, wine has got hundreds and hundreds of compounds. So it's not as easy as saying, oh, one, one thing equals one smell. It's not that simple. And as you said before, the Australians have done a great amount of work over the years looking at these phenols that are found in smoke. But if you take a wine that's not smoke tainted, and you add high concentrations of those phenols to the wine, it doesn't taste like smoke taint, which means those are not the compounds that are causing that ashy taste to smoke tainted wines. So we've been doing quite a lot of work. And it actually came about in a roundabout way from how we originally thought. So many people were asking us about, they needed a training standard to understand what smoke taint was. So they're properly evaluating their wine. So we finally managed to come up with a smoke taint training standard for people that that is exactly what happens, the sensory, ashy after taste of smoke tainted wine, and we said, hey, that's really representative of smoke taint. Let's go analyze that. So we analyze that with Tom Collins an assistant professor at Washington State University. And we found this new class of compounds. And then we analyzed a bunch of wine that had been exposed to smoke, as well as wine that hadn't been and saw hey, these thiolphenols. So similar to the phenolic, the Australians found but there's sulfur groups on it. So it makes them very potent compounds. So thiolphenols that were found at higher levels in smoke tainted wine, and in some subsequent sensory, we added thiolphenols to a non smoke tainted wine. And lo and behold, in sensory analysis, they were rated as being smoky and ashy, of smoke team for it.

Craig Macmillan 4:07

Wow, I'm assuming that this is a class of compounds that was already known to exist that just hadn't been associated.

Elizabeth Tomasino 4:13

You know, not really thiols, the overall thiol class of compounds is well known but thiolphenols we found one reference to it in a textbook in the 60s linked to burnt meat, it's not normally looked at and food a lot and so that I think that's one of the reasons number one, no one, no one had thought to look for them because when you think about thiols in wine, you think about Sauvignon Blanc and tropical fruit flavors. I think they individually smell like burnt hair and burnt meat and things like that. You don't normally think about that. And within the food industry, they don't measure them. So it really was really was sort of fortuitous that we had this standard that had high levels. And then we started realizing that like everything we know to cause problems in in smoke tainted wines. And all these things the wine industry was telling us really made a lot of sense with the chemistry of these new compounds.

Craig Macmillan 5:06

Let's talk a little bit more about what phenols are, very light and very volatile.

Elizabeth Tomasino 5:12

Yes, well, they're essentially the breakdown products of lignin. So lignin is the main structure of trees, lots of plants. And when you add heat and burn them, while there are many things that come out of them, phenols are one of those classes. So they're ring structures with an alcohol group off one of a benzene ring with an alcohol group as it is a basic phenol. And they're very much have the smell of sort of that old campfire. That's, that's the smell of them put together. But in thiolphenols instead of an alcohol group, it's a sulfur group. And that changes practically everything about the compounds.

Craig Macmillan 5:46

I've been talking to some other researchers. And we talked about the idea that some volatile phenols are found naturally at low levels in fruit potentially, but also possibly barrels, things like that. So certain phenols are not necessarily coming just from the outside, they may actually be a baseline level in fruit or wine starting out. Is that right?

Elizabeth Tomasino 6:08

Yes, I do want to say specifically to what we know to date, what we talked about free phenol. So phenol is not bound to anything else phenols that are aroma active so you can smell them. They are found in a lot of grapes at low levels, not enough that you'd really smell or taste it. When you toast oak barrels used in wine or oak based products. They're formed. Again, there's lignin in the oak, so they're formed that way. The one question that that is still a little up in the air is we don't think the bound phenol compounds exist freely in grapes, we do think that is really related to smoke exposure, though, of course, I know some people are doing research on it. So maybe they're gonna prove that wrong or, or correct in the future for it. But the free phenols low levels, definitely in grapes, different concentrations, depending on the grape variety. So it's not a one size fits all. And of course, you also have very different oak species in oak barrels. So there's some differences there. So so that's what has made a lot of this challenging is that you do have some of these naturally in grapes and wine. And then in the past, we've been looking at really elevated concentrations of those phenols. And what's exciting with the thiophenols. And again, we're so early in the research is we're pretty certain they don't exist, unless there's a smoke exposure effect these these thiophenol specifically, you know, we've got some work we're going to be looking on. But we do think they might be really good marker compounds because they're not, they're definitely not found in oak barrels.

Craig Macmillan 7:36

That's, that's really awesome. That's really fantastic. That really opens up a new world. This is I hadn't thought of this question till just now what is our ability to test for these, this does exist commercially.

Elizabeth Tomasino 7:47

Unfortunately, they are just as complicated if not more, as some of the phenols. So the issue with these compounds is so if we think about concentrations and decreasing concentrations, phenols that we've looked at in the past run at microgram two milligram concentrations, then you go down by a factor and you get nanograms per liter. And it looks like these style phenols are at picograms per liter, I have never actually worked with picograms per liter. So there's and they're very sticky compounds. So they react. So you first have to to measure them accurately, at least you first have to sort of, we call it a derivatization. So you add something to it to make it way more stable, less volatile, and then you have to concentrate them. So the sample prep is actually quite extensive. And I know we are working with some people to see if there are ways to speed it up or make it not quite as time consuming, but unfortunately they are they are kind of a pain to measure.

Craig Macmillan 8:47

So it sounds like sensory analysis is really our only tool at this point.

Elizabeth Tomasino 8:52

We do have some chemical analysis. So we're actually adapting a method that we've done for those more tropical fruit styles for it. But we still recommend because it will take some time to know the accuracy of the methods and other things like that we still do highly recommend doing microferments with sensory for it and particularly for this season potentially next season we might have some more testing available but as I just said there they are difficult to measure.

Craig Macmillan 9:19

Are there specific descriptors related to and what are the compounds for the volatile phenols we were looking at before and specific descriptors for the thiophenols it'll help people kind of identify.

Elizabeth Tomasino 9:31

Of my knowledge so the phenols we currently looked at guaiacol, o-Cresol, p-Cresol, it's actually very reminiscent of a bit more of a chemical even a little bit of a bandaid aromas to them when you put them together. Thiophenols the ones that we've determined at the moment we do know there are others but but we have to confirm which ones they are thoiphenol, thioguaiacol, the thio-Cresols, burnt shows up in every single one of their descriptors, burn hair, burnt pork, burnt rubber. It's that very strong burnt aspect of it.

Craig Macmillan 10:09

Which is maybe a little bit different than smoky campfire.

Elizabeth Tomasino 10:13

We found in sensory that when you put the phenols together with the thiophenols, that is smoke taint. So the combination of the two classes is really smoke taint. But as I mentioned before, we currently don't think the tihophenols are found in grapes, and they're certainly not an oak. So they might be they might be much better predictors in the future. There'll be a lot of work over the next year. But that's the current hypothesis, at least.

Craig Macmillan 10:38

Does different types of fuel impact, what kinds of compounds are going to be released in the air?

Elizabeth Tomasino 10:43

So yes, they will. A lot of research, we look at barley, and haze and things like that, because it's really lignin. And of course, all plants have lignin. So that's something across it. But different trees will also have other compounds. So for example, I know up and WSU, they burn sagebrush a lot, that the smell of it is not just smoke, there's other aspects to it. I know this year, we've collected some forest floor things in Oregon to see how Oregon compares to what we use in research, which is really primarily just lignin for it. A lot of the smoke taint work is really what would be found across all smoke for it. And then we're starting to look at the differences between the fuel so you know, what's an all smoke lignin based products or an all smoke, and then you'll start to get some of those very different, you know, fuels. And I'm not even going into burning buildings, that's a totally different thing. I'm just talking about plant material.

Craig Macmillan 11:42

Well, the whole other area when the town burns down, no, we have to worry about that. But we did in you know, in Napa and Sonoma, we've had massive burns as well. That's part of the whole picture. This just reminded me of something else. So you're talking about, you know, trying this and trying then when are folks experimentally exposing grapes to smoke?

Elizabeth Tomasino 12:00

Yes, I call it when we talk about things because of course I'm in I'm in charge of a large USDA grant, we have protocols for if we have what I call a natural smoke event, which thankfully, this year, fingers crossed has not been too bad. And then we also have our research smokes, because of course research still needs to happen even if there isn't a forest fire. So we actually build very big tents and cages and things enclosed grapevines and smoke them out.

Craig Macmillan 12:27

Well, you're making a grape smoker.

Elizabeth Tomasino 12:29

Essentially, yes.

Craig Macmillan 12:30

Do a brisket.

Elizabeth Tomasino 12:31

Uh huh.

Craig Macmillan 12:33

That's incredible that that must be quite a quite a project.

Elizabeth Tomasino 12:36

It takes quite a few students to get it set up and running each year. So.

Craig Macmillan 12:41

Has this discovery indicated any new directions, or any possibilities or any thoughts and creativity around mitigation strategies?

Elizabeth Tomasino 12:52

I think it's going to change the game for mitigation. So there's been a lot of work in mitigation without having been hugely successful. And phenols as I said before, the chemistry and the reactivity of phenols is hugely different from thiophenols, we've essentially been using mitigation strategies for the wrong compounds and sulfur compounds are highly reactive. So and we know a lot about them. So reductive aromas and wine are sulfur based compounds, we actually think it's going to speed up some mitigation. And we're going to have some some more things, winemakers can actually do that are going to be more successful, because now it's really, really there. There isn't a lot you can do for it. But again, we've been looking at the wrong type of techniques based on the chemistry of the compounds.

Craig Macmillan 13:43

So since we're looking at different types of thiols, are we talking about the same kinds of strategies at the wine level that a winemaker might use if they are had dealing with hydrogen sulfide, or captains or something like that.

Elizabeth Tomasino 13:57

So thios are a type of mercaptains and another name for thiols. And if you really go into your oxidation reduction chemistry, one of the things that we're going to be investigating strongly is thios are one form, they're sort of reduced form of this compound, really low perception threshold. So a little bit smells very strongly. If you change the form of that into the disulfide. That's not as strong, it doesn't have a big of a sensory impact. So when a lot of people are talking to us about these things that they've noticed in their wine, and we sort of scratched our head, we're going back and thinking about it now going, oh, this is oxidation reduction chemistry, like redox. It's making some sense if you think about it from a redox potential standpoint. So it is looking and into those aspects specifically, and there are things people do for oxidation and reduction. I was just talking to someone you know, someone said, Oh, add copper sulfate. And I'm like they used to do that but but it's cyclical in wine. So you have to remove the copper sulfate that's bound with the sulfur and there are some techniques out there that you can do that with it.

Craig Macmillan 15:03

Are there things just in general that growers should or should not do if they see that there is a smoke event headed their way to reduce smoke impacts on grapes?

Elizabeth Tomasino 15:15

Well, first off, they should be safe for what's happening where they are with with what's going on. For it, I think it's something to not panic. A lot of people I know, in 2020, we didn't know as much. A lot of people said we had an event, I'm not going to do anything with these grapes, just because it's so different based on the variety. And we are starting to have an understanding of which smoke is problematic. Just because you were near a fire doesn't mean you're going to have a problem. Just because you're far away from that fire doesn't mean you're not going to have a problem. So do go out, pick some grapes, do some small scale ferments, taste those, smell them, don't panic, again, do those microferments maybe get get a sample or two analyzed and then make a decision what you're going to do. I do not recommend making a decision, just hey, we had smoke in the vineyard, we shouldn't do anything. It's not that easy for it. So we do recommend, they don't have to pick all their grapes, but go out and pick some of the grapes, do a little ferment and then figure out if you want to pick your grapes or not

Craig Macmillan 16:17

Don't freak out.

Elizabeth Tomasino 16:18

Yeah. And it's hard because of course, it's a very, very sort of upsetting situation, but but I've seen samples where a fire was a mile or two away. And just based on the variety in the winemaking, they did they were fine. And one variety, versus another variety that it was awful for. And I know a lot of people picked grapes that weren't shouldn't have been picked in 2020. And I know people didn't pick grapes that should have been picked for it. And I think it's because we just panic for it. And I know it's hard to do that. But take a deep breath, get a couple of grapes samples, Do, I think UC Davis has some of the small scale ferment procedures up there and how to do the sensory. Taste your wines. Make sure you have several different people tasting with you because people have different sensitivities to smoke taint. And then sit down and make a decision about what you want to do.

Craig Macmillan 17:07

Another concern is the development of aromas over time. So initially, something might smell clean or fairly clean. But then over time, something starts to express itself. Is that accurate? Or is that something we're kind of like making up or afraid that will happen?

Elizabeth Tomasino 17:27

Actually, I think that is accurate to some point, there will be a point where the smoke taint won't necessarily change a lot anymore. And as I said before, an understanding of these new compounds are greatly going to change, you know, understanding the conditions. So for example, if your wine smells fine, you put it in bottle, and it develops over time. But you created a very reductive environment. So maybe your disulfide form change to the thio form. And then that's happening there. So yes, it will potentially still happen. But as we're learning new things about it and new treatments, we're gonna have a much better understanding of what to look at before you bottle it to see if you're going to have a problem later on.

Craig Macmillan 18:06

Again, coming back to mitigation or prevention, can I spray something on to the fruit that will prevent these aromatic compounds from getting into the flesh?

Elizabeth Tomasino 18:19

That's what we'd love to have first step right first step, well, first step don't have forest fires that is a little bit outside of my control. Second step, can we stop the compounds going into the grapes? There's a lot of people looking at a lot of different coatings and sprays and things. And unfortunately, that research takes multiple years because of course, the climate is slightly different each year. So I know a lot of people are working on it, I think we're going to have some options to not maybe stop it from going into the grapes are greatly reducing what goes into the grapes for it. And hopefully in the next next year or two. We're going to have some some better options and some information as that as a potential preventative step.

Craig Macmillan 18:58

If I spray something in the grapes are still wet, is that going to make it easier for for volatile compounds to get in? Or is that alone going to help?

Elizabeth Tomasino 19:07

So a lot of sprays fungicides, things like that, that are used have oils, lipids to them, it's what makes them stick to the grapes, what makes them effective, and phenols can dissolve into those and be transferred into the grapes. So I know in Australia and Anita Oberholster at UC Davis has done some work, looking at if any sprays can prevent them from going in or make things work. And I want to say the vast majority of them actually increase the smoke compounds in grapes. So they're not as effective. A lot of the work is being done on non traditional sprays or things you wouldn't think about. I work with Dr. Yanyun Zhao at Oregon State University. She's known for edible coatings for post harvest effects. And we're looking at developing some of these coatings to to block or trap the compounds from getting into the grapes for it. And I know Tom Collins is looking t some stuff, as is Anita as well, but they're very non traditional coatings, because of course, you don't want those oils and lipids and things, goods.

Craig Macmillan 20:09

Good to know. What about the timing of harvest? If I again, if I have an idea that there's a smoke event coming my way, in theory, I could go ahead and pick that fruit ahead of time and get it out of there. Where are my questions kind of coming from is that the if I understand correctly, the the particulates of smoke and the volatiles phenols or thio, phenols and smoke, they're totally different things. It just happens that the volatile compounds travel with the with the particulate do the is there a possibility that the phenols, the volatile phenols and the thiophenols travel ahead of the particulate and the reason I ask is do I need to worry about something before I see it?

Elizabeth Tomasino 20:47

So first off to my knowledge, thiophenols don't occur in smoke .Phenols occur in smoke. Phenols get absorbed into the grape, and then you have a lot of metabolic processes that occur, that that creates thiophenols for it. So we're still in least, at the moment, we're still looking at phenols from smoke specifically for it.

Craig Macmillan 21:08

Interesting, interesting. So the thiophenol was actually formed later?

Elizabeth Tomasino 21:12

We think and again, totally theoretical at this point in time, we think that the phenol levels get so high in the grapes, that it's almost like a detoxifying event, and it starts going through other metabolic pathways, one being the ones that create these thiophenols. And unfortunately, they're also bound to other compounds. So you still don't taste them in the grapes. Because they're bound, they don't have an aroma. And it is during fermentation that it releases that just like the traditional theory of phenols and phenol glycosides in in grapes for it. I work with a range of climate scientists for it. And they literally say if you can go outside and smell it, then you've got the compounds there, the vast majority of the time, you will be seeing smoke, so you don't have to worry about oh, what's going to come in there. And I'm not going to I'm not going to know, these compounds are also very reactive in air. So you can see smoke, but not smell them. Because it's not as simple as saying time or distance. But for instance, I think guaiacol within a number of six to 12 hours, it reacts with ozone and other things in air. So you don't have guaiacol anymore. If you have a very windy day. Of course that could mean that traveled very far versus a not windy day. It's not as easy as saying if your x miles out you're fine. Totally depends on the day. But but actually you you would it would be very rare. I can't think of one instance where you'd actually not see smoke and have those particles normally it's you'll see smoke and is the question. If you go there, is it really smelly or not?

Craig Macmillan 22:44

I interviewed a Anita Oberholster to the other day, and she was talking about the concept of the freshness of smoke having a potential impact. Does that idea come into your work at all?

Elizabeth Tomasino 22:56

Yes, it really comes into how much phenols. So the closer you are to the burn site, the less chance those compounds have had to react yet, so you're gonna have higher concentrations of phenols. So again, if you have a burn right next to your field and the wind is blowing into your field, you're gonna have a lot of those smoke compounds versus you know, there were there were smoke from Northern California went into Southern Oregon a little higher, they didn't have as much smoke compounds in their grapes, because of course, it was very far away from the actual burn ignition site. Now, that doesn't, to say that some of these huge fires, you're not going to get impacts far away. What I'm learning about fires and how they move in different layers of the atmosphere is if it's big enough, and if the air currents are going strong enough, far away can have a problem. But generally, the closer you are to the actual burn site, the higher those smoke compounds are. And that's where we talk about fresh or new smoke versus old smoke.

Craig Macmillan 23:54

Fascinating. Yeah, cause some cases we've had the cloud, the plume travel quite a long ways. And then the question is, well, how, you know, how much danger are we in in 2020 I saw we really did have differentials, some varieties picked up a little bit others were fine. And we just are like, well, that's just how it is. We couldn't really predict what was going to be what. So again, getting back to your point, just hang in there. Don't freak out. Try it out, see what's happening. Because at this point, we really can't kind of predict. What is one thing you'd recommend to our listeners around this topic protect particularly grape growers, but also winemakers?

Elizabeth Tomasino 24:33

I think grape growers and winemakers, there's a lot of information out there. Each of the states are grape growing wine growing associations have a lot of up to date resources for it. Talk to your extension people. We always have a lot of people who said hey, I did this. You know here I heard about this and it's not based in science. No one has tested it. There's been a lot of work out there. We're trying to make sure you don't waste your time on something that doesn't work. So please go to those places first before you try it. And as I said before, take a deep breath, go out and do some microferments, taste your wines, maybe get some analysis done, then sit down and make a decision. Again, I know it's a very stressful thing that happens. But we do feel very strongly that sort of people panic in the moment, and it's like, okay, you know, sit down, we know enough about things that your grapes could be okay, let's see if they are.

Craig Macmillan 25:29

That is a really good message. Where can people find out more about you and your work?

Elizabeth Tomasino 25:33

So Oregon State University and the Oregon Wine Research Institute does have a smoke grape smoke exposure page, the grant that I am project manager for, we will soon be working on having a website up through Oregon State University. For that we're trying to get set for this season. So that that got to the wayside at the moment for it. There are of course, extension articles and things out there, you can sometimes just type in my name with wine and smoke and see what pops up.

Craig Macmillan 26:02

Thank you so much. We'll let you get back to your conference. I am so grateful that you were able to take time out to talk to us today. It's a really important topic. And one, it's it's breaking news. We're hearing new things all the time, which is really exciting. I think that the the way that the science community has jumped on this is really laudable and really important for the industry all over all over the United States actually, and the world, quite frankly. So thank you for your work. Thanks for talking to us. Keep keep going. I hope that you have a lot of success, a huge team that's working on this and I think that that's gonna lead us down the road faster than if we didn't. So I really appreciate what you folks are doing. Our guest today has been Dr. Elizabeth Tomasino. She is associate professor in the Food Science and Technology Department at Oregon State University. Thanks again, Elizabeth. This has been great.

Elizabeth Tomasino 26:51

Thank you very much for having me.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai