Viticulture in northwestern Spain faces, among other challenges, the correct control of an endemic disease that affects a large part of its vineyard, the fungus Plasmopara viticola or downy mildew.
In the vineyards of this area, this fungus causes serious damage to the leaves, buds and, in many cases, to the grape bunches, reducing both the quantity and the quality of the harvest for a large number of winegrowers.
The continuous damage caused by the fungus makes it necessary to apply a large number of treatments with conventional products, which in many cases are products that are aggressive to the environment, particularly to the soil and the vineyard itself.
To alleviate this negative effect, in addition to managing the vineyard rationally, improving the trellish systems and controlling the canopy, one of the objectives of the NOVATERRA project is to address this problem through the use of bioproducts such as botanical extracts and natural compounds against downy mildew.
The bioproduct trials are carried out in different regions of Spain and France, areas differentiated by a greater or lesser incidence of the fungus, which will provide robustness to the results obtained. In the tests that we are carrying out in our vineyard, located precisely in the region that is highly sensitive to downy mildew, we will verify the efficacy of these biosolutions and the level of achievement of objectives. In our region, although we are not able to replace all the usual treatments with those with biosolutions, the fact of achieving at least a reduction in the number of treatments with chemicals will mean an important advance in the development of a more sustainable and higher quality viticulture, encouraging in this way the winegrowers to follow these new lines of fight against the downy mildew.