VITIFORESTERIE dans l'Yonne: BE FOR NATURE - BE FOR FUTURE
Wishing to rehabilitate in a sustainable way the magnificent and once famous vineyard of the Clos de la Gravière, now forgotten since 1911, when its vines were uprooted because of phylloxera, Arnould and Isabelle want to try the experiment of replanting vines among of hundred-year-old trees. Unlike other vitiforestry projects where trees are planted at the same time as vines, we are keeping old oaks and Austrian pines here so that perhaps they can pass on their experience to the young plants, as trees do to support each other in the forest.
The cost of the project is estimated at €100,000 (the average cost of organic planting in Burgundy varies from €30,000 to €43,000/Ha). Here we had to: Designing the project, researching the history of the plot of land up to the 17th century, carrying out extensive research into current or past vitiforestry projects, following 3 agroforestry training courses, bring in a surveyor to properly demarcate the plot and negotiate with the neighbours to keep the surrounding woods, inventory and map the trees to be kept with a forestry expert, analysing the characteristics of the plot: soil and geological analyses, making more than 14 pits to check the soil strata and as many chemical analyses of the soil, making a conductivity analysis of the soil preparing the land, i.e. clearing the land, removing roots, tree stumps, crushing the biggest stones, prepare the area by making it flat and creating turning areas (places where the tractor can turn), prune trees to over 10m; inventory and map trees to be kept with a forestry expert, analysing the characteristics of the plot: soil and geological analyses, making more than 14 pits to check the soil strata and as many chemical soil analyses, making a soil conductivity analysis preparing the land, i.e. clearing the land, removing roots, tree stumps, crushing the biggest stones, prepare the area by making it flat and creating turning areas (places where the tractor can turn), prune trees to over 10m; inventory and map the trees to be kept with a forestry expert, analysing the characteristics of the plot: soil and geological analyses, making more than 14 pits to check the soil strata and as many chemical soil analyses, making a soil conductivity analysis preparing the land, i.e. clearing the land, removing roots, tree stumps, crushing the biggest stones, prepare the area by making it flat and creating turning areas (places where the tractor can turn), prune trees to over 10m; delimit a 6m zone downstream of each tree and 4m upstream and to the sides to preserve their root system delineate corridors for future planting of young trees draw up an intra-parcel planting scheme according to soil fertility and humidity (division of the plot into 4 zones that will be planted and treated differently); define a map of the seedlings, with the different varieties arranged randomly to maximise biodiversity; each row is numbered and each plant recorded for better monitoring .
