Promoting EcoSystem Services in Grapes. PromESSinG

New approaches are needed to secure food production while creating sustainable agricultural systems requiring as few external inputs as possible. The interaction between biodiversity and ecosystem services (ESS) is recognized to play a key role in this context although large gaps in knowledge exist. Cultivation of grapevine as a perennial crop, characterized as a highly input-intensive crop often grown for several decades on exposed locations with particular climatic conditions, has a high potential of providing ESS linked to biodiversity since viticulture does not aim at producing maximum yield but rather high quality products. Additionally, viticulture can provide high levels of biodiversity inside the cropped area which cannot be found in annual cropping systems. Thus, viticultural systems provide ideal conditions for analyzing ESS relevant for the grapevine grower such as soil fertility and stability, water retention, pest and weed control as well as grape quality in relation to soil biodiversity and functioning.The PromESSinG project aims to identify management options for promoting biodiversity in order to reduce external inputs in vineyards ecosystems. It will be conducted from 2015 to 2018 in five countries of Central Europe : Germany, France, Austria, Switzerland, and Romania.