Sustainable Vineyard Management

Dear Colleagues,

It takes a collaborative and interdisciplinary effort to ensure the resilience of the grapevine industry in the current production context mired by climate change and increasing temperatures, the unavailability of skilled workforce, the reduction in available agricultural land, and global competition at all price points.

Ensuring the sustainability of viticulture is important because grapevine is economically viable in soils with reduced fertility not well-suited to other crops, demands relatively low amounts of inputs in dry regions, and occupies land in Mediterranean ecosystems that are global biodiversity hotspots and need a long time to return to the original state when no longer cultivated.

This Special Issue has the aim of collecting success stories and ideas worth sharing that would improve the sustainability of vineyard management from multiple standpoints. Please consider contributing with experimental, theoretical, or policy works that relate to strategies aiming to reduce the environmental impact of the grapevine industry; increase the resilience of grapevine production to climate change; improve the efficiency of vineyard management and increase profitability; or evaluate and ameliorate the economic impact of grapevine production, the environmental footprint, and the social role. Some examples of topics that fit within this Special Issue include:

(i) New strategies to deal with diseases, pests, and weeds in viticulture that are safer for the environment (e.g., biocontrol, physical methods, etc.); (ii) organic, biodynamic and unconventional grapevine production (e.g. agrivoltaic, agroforestry); (iii) new threats to grapevine production (e.g. smoke exposure, new pests and diseases); (iv) novel irrigation approaches and systems that could save water in viticulture; (v) precision agriculture and site-specific distribution of inputs; (vi) mechanical, automated, and digital approaches for efficient vineyard management; (vii) reuse of by-products of the grapevine industry; (viii) techniques to improve and assess soil health and biodiversity in vineyards; (ix) impact of globalization on local, national, and regional sustainability and the stability of grapevine production; (x) assessment of the environmental footprints of viticulture and comparisons with other crops at all scales; (xi) definition of sustainability in the context of grapevine production; (xii) implementation and monitoring of policies for sustainable vineyard management; (xiii) identification of unsustainable patterns of production.

Prof. Dr. Luca Brillante
Guest Editor

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• viticulture
• organic agriculture
• precision agriculture
• mechanized horticulture
• climate change
• soil health
• biodiversity
• environmental footprint
• drought