Efficient management of soil and water resources in vineyards to optimize fertilization and mitigate environmental impact

The objectives of this Task Force are independent of the size of the farm, the available technology, the level of mechanisation and old or modern agricultural practices, and focus on: promoting the protection of the soil surface and the conservation of slopes and rural roads in vineyards to reduce the degradation of the structure, erosion, run-off and loss of organic matter, mitigating the negative impacts on soil and water quality and the emission of greenhouse gases; developing decision-making tools at the scale of plots and small agricultural basins that allow optimising the integrated management of soil and surface water and reducing the impact on the natural environment of the resources used on farms, using readily available climatic, soil, topographic and satellite information; generalising the use of methods that allow a rapid characterisation of the organic matter content of the soil, including laboratory analysis and remote sensing techniques.