To combat pests, diseases, and to remove weeds belong to the everyday tasks of a farmer and a wine grower. There is a lot of money – and controversy – in pesticides so therefore the announcement that the German company Bayer is probably buying the American company Monsanto has caused a lot of speculations.
Bayer is a major pharmaceutical and agrochemical company while Monsanto is more specialized in the agrochemical business. Monsanto is the world’s largest producer of GM crops (and a hate object for a number of environmental organizations and activists in Europe) and manufactures the well-known Round-Up, an herbicide containing glyphosate, a substance that the EU is currently debating whether it should ban. Bayer produces a variety of insecticides, fungicides and herbicides.
Read more: washingtonpost.com
5 Responses
The best wine deals are already the ones made entirely without pesticides, herbicides and insecticides. But the volume produced is of course low. We still need chemicals to match the demand of the mass-market production.
Not so sure about that. In reality, virtually all wines are made with some sort of pesticides, even organic, biodynamic and so called “natural”.
I know the Bordeaux mix and sulphur is common for organic farming to avoid vine diseases. It’s definitely better to spray a bit as a precaution than a lot later on… But you can still have pretty lively vineyard with lots of weeds and insects and impressive quality of the juice even on average vineyards due to organic (I call it soil friendly) farming.
Sorry but you are not correct on this one.
We only use some copper sulphate like in the old days. Absolutely 0 of other pest-, insecticides. Also forbidden in biodynamic. Also no chemicals used in our wine cellar.
Not necessarily wanting to get into a “You’re wrong” “No, you’re wrong” situation but I must point out that you are wrong Peter.
Both copper and sulphur are pesticides so virtually ever wine grower uses some kind or other of pesticides.
Organic ones are just more restricted in what kinds they are allowed to use. (Which is not necessarily always for the better although in general it is probabloy a positive thing.)