14 May 2008 Greening Waipara hits the road

Organised by Sustainable Winegrowing New Zealand, the roadshow focuses on the main tenets of Greening Waipara - the restoration of vineyard habitats by planting mainly native plants among and near the vines. The native species should provide nectar to support beneficial insects - those that control plant pests.

To date, 45 Waipara Valley properties have signed up to Greening Waipara, having seen how adding biodiversity makes them more sustainable, profitable and marketable. Steve is now keen for other New Zealand winegrowers to learn more about the project.

“The main aim of this tour is to complement the activities of Sustainable Winegrowing New Zealand by sharing best-practice biodiversity research from Waipara with all of New Zealand’s winegrowing regions.

“New Zealand wines are top quality but represent only 0.5% of the world wine market. Exports are anticipated to reach $1 billion by 2010 but the wines have to fight in a competitive market. Residues, energy use, carbon emissions, water use – all are part of the battery of market-based incentives to be demonstrably ‘green’. Waipara is showing the way, based on ecological science.”

Steve will be joined on the tour by Dr Marco Jacometti, Jean Tompkins and Dr Samantha Scarratt.

Greening Waipara is funded mainly by the Bio-Protection Research Centre, the Foundation for Research, Science & Technology and Waipara Winegrowers. The Bio-Protection Research Centre is an unincorporated joint venture consisting of four partner organisations: Lincoln University, Massey University, AgResearch and Crop & Food Research.  It is one of seven national Centres of Research Excellence and is hosted by Lincoln University.

For more information about Greening Waipara:
Caroline Lucas: lucasc@lincoln.ac.nz

For more information about the workshops:
Sustainable Winegrowing New Zealand (www.nzwine.com/swnz)
Sally van der Zijpp, Karen Bryant.