Biodiversity in the vineyard and in the garden

In this article, Caro Feely explores biodiversity, why it’s important, how wine growers are encouraging it, and how these actions can be applied in a garden setting.

What is biodiversity?

Biodiversity means biological diversity in an environment, as indicated by numbers of different species of plants, insects, and animals. It is the opposite of a monoculture where a single crop grows on otherwise bare earth.

Other terms sometimes confused with biodiversity by visitors to the farm

Sometimes people get mixed up between the terms ‘biologique’ which means organic in French (a legally protected term that can only be used for certified organic products), biodynamic (a way of farming that is ‘organic +’) and biodiversity. Unlike the other two terms, biodiversity is not a certification, but it is a valuable component of a healthy farm. Biodiversity can be encouraged on conventional, organic, and biodynamic farms, and in your garden.

As part of the visits at Château Feely we share information on organic farming, climate change and biodiversity and get the opportunity to discuss these important topics with our guests.

Why is biodiversity important?

We are only beginning to understand the importance of biodiversity, at a time when we are losing biodiversity at a startling rate.

The Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) 2019 Global Assessment Report on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services estimated that 1 in 4 species was at risk of extinction due to pollution, loss of habitat, and climate change.

Essentially – ecosystems are like a house of cards, if one card goes, it impacts many others and accelerates more loss and potential collapse of the entire system. We are part of the environment and dependent on it, so this directly impacts us.

Why is biodiversity important for winegrowers?

Beneficial Insects

A variety of plants growing in the vineyard brings a variety of insects including the beneficial ones. At Feely farm we have large populations of beneficial bugs like ladybirds, typhlodromes, and chrysopes, that keep the less wanted insects like aphids and spider mites at bay. This means we avoid insecticides.

Having a biodiversity of plants creates a biodiversity of insects and creates a natural balance and hence a solution to unwanted pests. If there is no other insect – or other life – just a monoculture, one pest species could reproduce exponentially and create serious problems. Having a living web keeps the balance.

Back in 2007 after just over a year of organic farming our farm advisor did a count of beneficial insects. She was stunned that we had 3 times the number she was finding on other already certified organic farms. She couldn’t say why.

It was only in 2022 when Caro Feely did a course on how to create biodiversity on a farm that we could explain why. It was thanks to the wild areas and hedgerows that were naturally part of our hilly farm. Even though previous owners had farmed conventionally, the cliffs and steep zones could not be farmed and turned into monocultures. They provided a safe place for the beneficial insects to continue to thrive during the thirty odd years of pesticides on the farm (from around 1975 to 2005 when Sean and Caro Feely bought the farm). When Chateau Feely went organic, it was easy for beneficial insects to move from those wild zones back into the vineyard. These zones were beneficial to our farm biodiversity even in the conventional years.

Layers of Plant biodiversity

The concept of vineyard plant biodiversity includes the low-level biodiversity of plants and grasses between the vine rows, other taller plants in the vines – for example trees within the trellis line and hedgerows and copses around the edges of the vineyard. These in turn create insect, birds and mammal biodiversity.

Avoid mowing and trimming

Every time a farmer mows or trims the vineyard, they upset the creatures living in that environment. Would you feel safe if an enormous machine with slashing blades trimmed your home regularly? No. You would move out.

Sometimes you might find Feely vineyards look a little ‘messy’ or ‘hairy’ with weeds especially compared to conventional vineyards. This is good! Sean avoids mowing as long as possible. The plants on the vineyard floor are less likely to grow quickly if you let them finish their cycle and set their seeds. Some years we only mow twice (timing is important). This also saves fuel and avoids soil compaction by heavy machinery.

Trees in the Vineyard

Trees bring another dimension of biodiversity in the vineyard (and other benefits see below for more). We noted a net increase in birdlife  at Chateau Feely since we have had trees in the vineyard.

Constraints to trees in the vineyard

If we want trees in the vineyard rows, we can’t use a harvest machine. A harvest machine straddles the row and can’t do that if there are trees. Thus, having trees in the rows is reliant on the decision to handpick (link to Handpick article), which comes with many other benefits – but can be more expensive, particularly in high labour cost economies like France.

Mammal and bird biodiversity

Why do we care about mammal and bird biodiversity?

Apart from the overall benefits of a living eco-system and better flavour in our wines from healthy soil – a concrete benefit of trees is bats in the vineyard. And bats mean less grape worm. Bats can eat the equivalent of their body weight of insects in a night. They eat the European grapevine moth that produces the European grape worm and thus they solve the grape worm issue for us. But bats need multi-layered terrain, not monocultures, to navigate. If we have hedgerows, trees, and other plants in the vineyard, we offer bats, other mammals and insects, habitats, or places to live, and layers to help the bats to navigate. It’s win-win.

With birds it is a similar story. Insectivores and birds of prey are beneficial. In some parts of the world winegrowers have to net their vines against fruit eating birds but fortunately in France that is not the case. See the birds identified at Chateau Feely during 1 week in June 2024 (ten years after Sean Feely first started encouraging trees to establish in the trellis rows) for a point in time list of the birds seen/heard on the farm.

Fungi biodiversity

Beautiful wild orchids flower each April and May in Feely vineyard. They are a sign of a healthy living soil. Orchids are dependent on mycorrhizae, a special fungus that develops on the root systems of 95% of plants tested to date and helps them access nutrients in the soil. This mutually beneficial relationship came about more than 400 million years ago. Research shows that mycorrhizal networks transport carbon, phosphorus, nitrogen, water, and defence compounds – compounds that combat attack by something, from plant to plant. They are especially beneficial for plants in nutrient poor soils. The best wine grapes are grown on relatively poor soil, so it is particularly relevant for us winegrowers. These magic mushrooms (as in fabulous fungi not hallucinogenic) will not develop in chemically farmed soil because of systemic fungicides.

Wild orchids appeared after three years of organic farming at Chateau Feely, an indicator that the farm was clear of the systemic fungicides that had been used before we arrived in 2005.

Systemic fungicides are bad for us, they can be carcinogenic (cancer causing) and nervous system disruptors. They are ‘systemic’, that means they go inside the plant and inside the fruit and can’t be washed off.  They also destroy soil health and kill mycorrhizae thus harming vine health and wine quality.

Biodiversity at Chateau Feely

After changing from machine picking to hand picking everything in 2014, we began to nurture trees and ivy that grew in acceptable places in the trellis rows. Trees help amortise extreme weather from climate change e.g. they decrease extremes – they reduce frost risk and provide shade from extreme heat. Ivy is a massive biodiversity booster and offers an important source of pollen to pollinators late Autumn. An oak tree with ivy will host double the number of species compared to an oak tree without ivy (around 500 vs 250).

A tree that has naturally established itself has a higher chance of survival than a planted tree. The benefits were more than expected. Probably the most important identified outcome from the trees in the vineyard is almost no grape worm thanks to bats in the vineyard (see above).

Creating Biodiversity Corridors/ links connecting zones of biodiversity

In 2022 when Caro Feely followed a ‘biodiversity on the farm’ training she realised that we already had good biodiversity in many areas (hedgerows, copses and wild zones) – and the encouragement of trees in the vineyard rows was good – but we lacked links between some key zones of biodiversity.

After the course we got down to planning exactly how to create these corridors. We were lucky to have well established wild zones, some trees beginning to establish themselves in the trellis rows, and old hedgerows; but we were missing some key connectors.

The 2023/24 project of 300m of Hedges and 100 trees was an important first step to building these biodiversity links.

In 2024 when a hailstorm devastated our vines in May resulting in more than 80% crop-loss we made our September harvest day for Chateau Feely wine club Members and vineyard shareholders into a fabulous tree planting day and celebration. Our wonderful clients helped to plant 25 oak seedlings and a smattering of other species. All the seedlings were collected by us in areas where they would not survive otherwise (eg in the gravel near the winery or from glands that fell onto tarps or other places where they had no future).

Tree planting and tree nurturing (of those that spontaneously establish themselves) are key parts of our future plans for biodiversity at Chateau Feely.  You can join us and support future tree planting at our tree planting page.

What can you do to encourage biodiversity?

The elements we learned about how to encourage farm biodiversity can be applied to a garden too. Here are some of the ideas that are simple and easy.

• Leave medium sized stacks of branches in a few places as a home for insects and small mammals.
• If you have a shaded wooded area leave logs to decompose as they offer fungi, moss, insects, and others a home.
• Select a part of your garden to leave wild – even if it is very small.
• For borders, if you have space, go for local multi-species hedgerows rather than walls or fences. Try to link your hedgerows to others so you create biodiversity corridors.
• You could also leave some grassy areas unmown, perhaps use the mower to create a path to a small section where you particularly want mown lawn and leave the rest to nature. It saves mower energy and encourages life in your garden.
• Avoid insecticides and herbicides for your health and for the inhabitants of your garden.
• Include a water source, even a small container or birdbath, is very beneficial.
• If all the monoculture lawn gardens in the world were transformed into havens of biodiversity a major bulwark against biodiversity loss would be created.

Excellent Books on Biodiversity

Find my five best biodiversity books selection at Shepherd books https://shepherd.com/best-books/biodiversity-plants-and-natural-magic

You can find them at the quick links below:

• Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer https://amzn.to/4b7GNFW
• Finding the Mother Tree by Suzanne Simard https://amzn.to/4b7GUBm
• The Sixth Extinction by Elizabeth Kolbert https://amzn.to/3Qk80LM
• We Are The Ark: Returning Our Gardens to Their True Nature Through Acts of Restorative Kindness, by Mary Reynolds with illustrations by Ruth Evans https://amzn.to/3EA4mLp
• Wilding by Isabella Tree https://amzn.to/4jRmhNA

And in shameless self-promotion we also recommend Caro Feely’s Cultivating Change https://amzn.to/41qwE41

Conclusion

Every farm or garden transformed into a biodiversity haven makes a difference. Every change that you make to offer a haven for fellow inhabitants of planet earth is good for them and for us.

Have you had success with biodiversity in your garden or farm/ vineyard? Do you have any ideas to add to this list? Let me know in the comments section below.

Find out more about Chateau Feely’s biodiversity and tree planting project and join us as a Supporter of the Biodiversity project . This support is to help us to maintain the trees and hedges. By helping us to establish these biodiversity corridors and trees, you create multiple benefits for our shared planet. Read about why supporting biodiversity and addressing climate change are critical to all our futures and how to do it in Caro Feely’s book Cultivating Change.

Book into the Lodge or the Cottage self catering. Come and learn more about organic farming with a visit to Chateau Feely in South West France ; stay with us or do a multi day course or multi day walking tour or a multi day Wine tour.

You can read the full story of Feely organic farm in the acclaimed vineyard series.

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