Research organisations in action!

For the past ten years,  INRAE ​​(National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and Environment) and FIBL (Research Institute of Organic Agriculture) have been working on setting up flower mixes that can increase biodiversity. Through the choice of local species, the objective is to respond to food shortages for wild bees, butterflies, hoverflies…

Biodiversity indicators and more particularly a pollination indicator have been developed. They take into account visual attraction for the different species, accessibility to the flower and reward in terms of quantity and quality of pollen and nectar.

The restoration of various local plant communities enables better synergy within ecosystems. The choices must of course be adapted to the type of agriculture and the technical itinerary of the winegrower, according to the parameters of environment, type of soil and situation of the existing landscape structures.

In VinBiodiv, in collaboration with winegrowers from France and Switzerland, INRAE ​​and FiBL are carrying out experiments on the herbaceous layer, in particular the composition of flower mixtures at the edge of plots and between rows.

At the end of the project, an evaluation of these experiments and their impacts will be carried out. This will result in the publication of scientific articles that we shall communicate on this site.

Publication will be supported by a bibliographic review of existing models to assess pollination.  We shall take into account the forecast according to the flora present, but also the quality of the models in order to orient the territories towards more diversity.

Beyond the VinBiodiv project, INRAE ​​is also carrying out experiments that can respond to this challenge:

• A network of plots from north to south Alsace
• A full study of the Ribeauvillé watershed
• A system test on three wine-growing sites in France (Bordeaux, Montpellier and Colmar)