An Innovative Pest Solution
In 2017, Jean-Pierre Wolff decided that rather than replanting his vines on the same rootstocks, he would convert a portion of Wolff Vineyards to drought-resistant rootstocks and plant them three feet into the ground.
Deriving inspiration from an African palm farming technique, Jean-Pierre uses PVC pipes to deliver water and nutrients directly to the root zone. There is no wait time for the nutrients to be pushed to the roots, and no water is wasted through parts of the soil that contain no roots.
Along with the tremendous water savings resulting from his deeply planted vines and subsurface irrigation technology, Wolff has discovered an “indirectly obvious” benefit - fewer weeds. Since water and fertilizer are applied through PVC pipes that lead directly to the root systems 3-feet underground, native and noxious weeds with shallow roots can’t access these resources, and therefore can’t thrive.
Vertebrate pests have also had little success in establishing themselves in these areas since they don’t typically dig to the depths at which the roots lie.