John van der Linden – LandWISE Board Member
Epitomising this years theme of “Rethinking Best Practice” John van der Linden from Villa Maria Estate discussed the “Future Vineyard”
Often people’s future thinking is constrained by their past practises and experiences and so many ‘innovations’ are often only ‘improved ways of doing the same thing’. Two main considerations went into designing the vineyard of tomorrow:
- How to use land more effectively (more high quality grapes/ha)
- How to grow grapes more efficiently (eliminating, minimising, or combining operations)
Some solutions in this space that Villa Maria is trialling include:
- “Trunk-Wrapping”: eliminates disbudding, or avoiding disbudding altogether and combining it with pruning.
- “Sustainable Vineyard Floors”: eliminating or at least drastically reducing the numerous weed control and mowing passes by using different inter-row species and management techniques.
- “Inverse Goblet” style vines: growing staked vines in an isometric pattern can provide advantages over current planting arrangements (parallel rows)
John van der Linden is a Viticulturist with Villa Maria Estate, NZ’s most awarded wine company. He has developed a wealth of viticultural experience and knowledge having grown up on a vineyard, owned and managed his own vineyards, studied and lectured in Viticulture and worked as a Viticulturist in Hawkes Bay and Marlborough for some major NZ wine companies. One of John’s philosophies is that ‘there is always a better way’ and so innovation, sustainability and continuous improvement play a big part in his role.
John’s interests include family, rowing, cycling, swimming, guitar, Hi-Fi, technology, flying, design & architecture.