Bio-LOGIC

The practice of Bio-LOGIC agriculture was developed Johnathan Grieve, caretaker  of family-owned Avondale Wine Estate. Searching for a way to produce wine to its fullest natural potential,  Johnathan found that the more common farming methods termed organic and biodynamic were too limited to achieve the purest possible agricultural conditions he deemed necessary to provide grapes for making wine expressing Avondale’s terroir to its fullest potential.

Bio-LOGIC uses key elements of accepted organic and biodynamic farming methods, but goes further in its strive for a more holistic, all-encompassing approach to essentially revert the land to the condition farmers would have found it in centuries ago

Bio-LOGIC translates into NATURAL farming.

The entire farm is viewed as a living system that has to be in total equilibrium to support life and produce balanced vines, grapes and wine.

We use only natural predators to kill pests instead of poisonous pesticides. A posse of 100 Pekin ducks are sent out to patrol the vineyards and eat snails. Wasps and mealybug destroyers are used to fight mealy bug plagues.

Weeding is mechanize or mulching is used instead of chemical herbicides.

Natural biological antidotes such as bacteria sprays instead of poisonous chemicals are used to fight diseases such as downy mildew.

Chemical killing agents are never used as they destroy life indiscriminately.

An intricate cover cropping system attracts organisms and micro-organisms to the soil and establishes an environment which is truly vibrant with life and with the capacity to sustain itself. Micro-organisms enable the vines to absorb nitrogen to its maximum capacity through a natural process without the use of artificial fertilizer.

The key to our Bio-LOGIC approach is thus soil rejuvenation. Using historical records and scientific analysis, Johnathan’s main aim was to accept the fact that his soils had been stripped of trace elements and its other natural contents through decades of artificial fertilizing and irresponsible farming practices.

Pure, natural wine requires grapes expressing not only the climate and soil types, but the physical make-up and condition of the soils themselves. Bio-LOGIC thus targets the soil, striving towards creating a natural balance of all its elements, elements that had over the years literally been burned away through the indiscriminate use of nitrogen, pesticides and fertilizers.

The Bio-LOGIC approach differs from organic and biodynamic farming in that – unlike the latter two – it does not use compost and manure. The reason for this is that even though they are deemed natural and less harmful than chemical fertilizers, compost and manure could be contaminated by hormones, antibiotics or – even worse – Genetically Modified (GM) produce.

Not even organic fertilizer is used in Bio-Logic farming. Instead, in this method the soil is assisted in building up its own source of nitrogen.

This is achieved through balancing and re-mineralizing the soil by feeding the micro life of the soil and utilizing diverse cover-cropping systems to bind nitrogen. Unlike other viticulture processes, Bio-LOGIC does not feed the vine, but rather the system and the soil life. This in turn feeds the vine, maintaining the perfect balance.

As we believe in the balance of nature, we adopted the Albrecht system of soil balancing. It involves the balancing of soil nutrients and correcting imbalances that developed over the years. This is obviously a very intricate process and requires a lot of input in the beginning, but there are rewarding results with regard to soil life and structure, and plant growth.

The system also changes one’s philosophy about fertilizing and types of nutrients. The key is that each input should encourage soil life.

We try to focus on natural predators and natural fungicides, like the following:

• A flock of ducks controls the whole of Avondale’s snail population, eliminating the need for chemical snail pellets. The ducks are effective and cost-saving.
• We use two Bacillus strains, one against worms and the second to combat downy mildew. Both these bacteria occur naturally and are very specific in their action.
• The predatory wasp Coccidoxenoidses perminutes or mealy bug destroyer has been released on the farm during the last three seasons and has been a great success against mealy bug.

On our top-soil, an intricate system of cover-cropping and mulching is used to create a living eco-system upon the soil and to generate nitrogen-binding. Humic acid and other natural preparations propagate fungi growth for plant feed and nitrogen absorption.

We use six indigenous species as cover crops in our vineyards. They are the grey-leaved, aromatic kooigoed (Helichrysum sp.); a pioneer species with grey-green leaves called kouterbos (Athanasia trifurcate); the  aromatic-leaved wild sage (Salvia chamleagna); a wild, aromatic rosemary called kapokbos or snow white (Eriocephalus africanus) and three nitrogen-fixing varieties, namely Lotonis /Lessertia sp., with yellow pea flowers and grey leaves, Sutherlandia frutescence and Orholobium decumbems.    
 
These plants were encouraged to multiply and establish themselves. We also started to collect seed from the surrounding area and began to reseed areas with species selected for their hardiness, ability to grow in very rocky soils, scent and flowers to attract natural predators, low water needs, and their ability to survive mowing and ability to enrich the soil with nitrogen.

In its search for optimal soil-rejuvenation, Avondale looked to the application of sea-solids as part of its Bio-LOGIC process. The use of sea-solids in agriculture was pioneered by Dr. Maynard Murray, who began at a logical conclusion: Over the ages a huge amount of nutrients had been leached and eroded out of the soil and into the ocean. By harvesting these mineral elements and re-applying them on our soils, the soils can be re-mineralized to a natural state that modern technology and science is unable to replicate.

Sea water has the perfect balance of all 90 elements; during the Bio-LOGIC process, unpolluted from the icy sea-water is taken from the Atlantic Ocean on South Africa’s west coast and is concentrated to the ideal re-mineralization solution.

These myriad micro-elements that modern science has no idea as to its true purpose are crucially important to plant production, and also to the health of consumers of these plants and their products – such as wine.

The application of these rich sea-solids not only lead to healthy disease -resistant and self-sustainable vines, but also benefits Avondale’s wines as it will facilitate flavor, character enhancement, and ultimately a more unique wine – the primary goal of any wine producer.

An essential part of Bio-LOGIC is “listening” to the soil. We can deploy the purest methods of farming, but only the vines will tell us whether these methods are successful. The vines are thus constantly monitored by measuring their nutrient density through leaf sap readings.

Each week representative leaf samples are taken from the vineyards, and through the use of sap meters the nutritional status of the vines can be determined. The levels of pH, conductivity and Brix, amongst others, are measured. This enables the farmer to actually “see” how healthy the vines are in real time and whether they are stressed or prone to disease.

For instance:  when a vineyard displays a Brix reading measuring over 14 for 24 hours a day, it is guaranteed not to get fungal or insect attacks.

If the vines show signs of imbalance, they are balanced through re-mineralization, natural nutrition and foliar feeds.

Bio-LOGIC can thus deduce which elements the vines require and a potential positive or negative influence of any application can be detected.