Vineyard Resilience – Thoughts on Farming Through the Global “Over-Supply”

I’ve been asked frequently to talk about farming for resilient vines, but recently there’s another hot button topic people are asking about: economic resilience. Whether you call it “vineyard resting”, “reduced viticultural input”, “mothballing” or a “holding pattern”, it’s something that growers, wineries and wine companies are leaning on to weather the storm of the global oversupply of wine.

It’s a painful subject, but the world simply has too much wine, and the simplest way to right this “wrong” is to stop producing so much, which starts in the vineyard. Unfortunately, pivoting to another crop is not a simple switch in a perennial system like grapes, so how best to farm or not-farm a vineyard is a reality many are living.

How best to “not” farm economically, for the long-term health of the vineyard, and in a socially responsible way, is hotly debated. And while the resilience of any vineyard operations relies on outside forces (grower vs company block, variety, size, alternative income streams, etc.), we’ll outline our thoughts on some viticultural considerations involved with mothballing blocks as well as some learning opportunities we can glean along the way.

Longterm or short-term parking?

The major consideration for a vineyard who has fruit with no home, is how long they need to have the blocks out of production. And since grapes have a two-year production cycle, where this year’s fruit was initiated at flowering last year, a longer-term timeline than the current season needs to be considered. In short, it’s important to remember that reduced inputs now have implications on inputs required to get back into production.

Is the plan a “holding pattern” where the vines need to be able to be brought back into production the following year, or a longer term “perennial fallow period” where the block won’t be needed for several, or more, years. The difference in costs for the grower between these two strategies are pretty extreme, so an honest assessment of the market is absolutely crucial.

Ultimately what makes a vineyard economically resilient through a period of mothballing relies on the greater operation’s finances, but largely relies on the wine market which requires living in the unknown for a while and making the best educated guess you can about this.

Operational Considerations

To prune or not to prune - Pruning, especially cane pruning, is the single most expensive pass in the vineyard, so skipping it is an obvious cost savings for a mothballed vineyard. Vines will continue to grow if not pruned, that’s what they do, but since we’re confining them to a trellis system with restricted permanent structures and defined vegetative growing areas pruning choices matter. Cutting the cost in the first year, will undoubtedly add costs to “normal” pruning when the vineyard is brought back into production.

For all pruning, protecting wounds by spraying fungicides, and leaving room for dieback if removing cordons, is critical for the long-term health of the vines.

To spray or not to spray - The second major expense of growing fruit is pest control, especially fungal pathogens and weeds.

• Weed control: In most cases this is an easy operation to cut. Where weed species and their contribution to future seedbeds, or competition with vines is excessive, a reduction in the program rather than complete neglect may be best.

  
  

• Canopy sprays: A full spray regime isn’t necessary, since some leaf or fruit infection is tolerable when you’re not harvesting, but a few sprays to keep powdery from taking the canopy out and infecting buds is a good idea. Exactly how much spraying this is will depend on the weather in the season. Check out our blog ROUSs for more information.

To water or not to water – This is going to be growing region specific. Where irrigation is required, this is a great opportunity to “test” the limits and encourage root exploration.

To fertilise or not to fertilise – Tissue samples!!!! – these are cheaper than fertiliser and will help you decide if your vines are lacking excessively, and it’s just good viticultural practice. You may not be harvesting the crop, but it still takes nutrients to grow tissue and whatever crop it does carry, but until the vines are back in production, you at least don’t have a winemaker complaining about YANs.

To manage neighbour relationships or not - A mothballed block can serve as an inoculum source for pests and diseases; there’s no arguing that. Thus, for social responsibility or to adhere to local laws, some disease control might be necessary, even with a long-term mothballing plan.

That being said, it’s important to understand the pests and diseases to understand the risk a mothballed vineyard might pose to neighbouring vineyards and blocks. For example, while it is true that powdery mildew spore loads near infected blocks are higher, it is also true that a fungicide programme that is applied on-time, on-target, and with the right chemistry will protect vines even with very high spore loads. This is proven every time a spray trial is conducted in a vineyard anywhere in the world. The control is a complete wipeout, and the treated vines, even vines in the next bay, are fine. To have “gotten powdery from your neighbour” means intervals were not kept, the chemistry used was not effective, the sprays did not hit the target, or the weather has contributed to the infections. We're hosting a field day in Marlborough in a few weeks to demonstrate just that (RSVP is required - so please follow the link here to register - 19 February 2026 @ 10:30).

So what does a "full mothball" look like?

The images below are taken of mothballed rows next to a production block with one of our spore traps to assess inoculum pressure in close proximity. These rows have had absolutely no managment all season, and are 5m from the neighbouring block that is in production.

Mothballed Block Images - November 10, 2025

Mothballed Block Fruit Images - January 17, 2026

At this point in time most commercial operations would be on round 10-12 of their spray program. I've seen worse powdery mildew infections on bunches in production vineyards.

Mothballed Block Images - February 5, 2026

Making lemonade from lemons

While the current situation is painful, we cannot help but think that there are learnings from this situation that we can apply to our vineyards in the future to improve practice. For example, allowing midrow vegetation to grow more than we currently do means more flowering plants in the vineyard, potentially recruiting biological control agents. Many parasitoids require nectar resources to reproduce, which are largely absent in a tightly mowed, or completely tilled out, vineyard. If they don’t reproduce, there are no eggs to lay in, or on, pest insects. Equally, the frequent dusting of vineyards with sulphur, which volatilises at high temperatures. This is wonderful for disease control, but not pleasant for organisms (beneficial and not) to the grapes we grow.

Mothballed Rows

Production Rows

Allowing more plant growth in the mid-row, combined with reducing the number of tractor passes (sometimes to zero), are likely to improve soil health. Compaction has been flagged by the Marlborough regional council as a major threat to soil health in the region. The growth of plant roots through the soil has been shown to reduce compaction, and aside from mechanical ripping, is really the only option to alleviate compacted soils. By not driving over the same areas every 7-14 days, we better allow the plants to do their good work. At the same time, they will be sending root exudates underground, feeding the microbes in the soil and encouraging nutritional cycling and organic matter accumulation.

Rows of a complete "vineyard resting" portion of a vineyard in Marlborough

I was walking in a mothballed block recently and was struck by the abundance of insect life. These vines had not been pruned, and the rows not mowed, so the entire area was lush with plants. I put out some sticky traps in a few mothballed rows, and some in a nearby cropping block that had been mowed, herbicide sprayed under-vine, and regularly canopy sprayed. I’m not entomologist, so cannot differentiate the insects to determine what they are and if they’re good guys, bad guys, or just along for the ride. What the traps did was to back up my sense that there were a whole lot more bugs in the mothballed block. This could be an excellent thing.

I can’t help but think that we, by “protecting” our crop, might actually be harming creatures that can actually help us in that mission. Apples in NZ offer an example. In the bad old days of broad-spectrum organophosphate use, outbreaks of pest insects were a huge problem because the insecticides were also taking out competitors, predators, and parasitoids of the pests. These days, with more targeted insecticides, and less insecticide use overall, pest insect outbreaks are less frequent, not more frequent. Can we make a similar change in the way we farm grapes from learnings gleaned from mothballed and reduced input blocks? We know, and have outlined in a previous blog, that we spray too much in New Zealand, especially in the early season. Can we prove this, and potentially learn other ways to improve practice, both economically and environmentally, from reduced input blocks? I think, and hope, that we can.

Next season, we aspire to embark on a research programme looking into the effects of various degrees of reduced viticultural inputs on ecosystem services. We hope to work with entomologists, soil scientists, plant pathologists, and ecologists to assess the effects of our vineyard management on the vines, the soils, and the greater ecosystems of our vineyard. Perhaps this downturn in demand is actually an opportunity to improve how we manage blocks once demand returns. Our industry, and our wines, will be better for it.