Leaf Roll, Chemicals and the San Francisco Chronicle
On July 18, 2010, the Chronicle ran a fascinating article about among other things, leaf roll. This is an affliction that vines suffer from that shuts down the sugar production early, and leads to those rich, red autumn vineyards. Healthy grape leaves turn golden yellow. Of course there are other viruses that affect vines, but leaf curl is interesting because ripping the vineyard out and replanting doesn’t appear to eradicate it.
In the course of the article they interviewed growers from Oakville in Napa, a place especially hard hit by this, to Sonoma Valley where organic agriculture has some of its strongest advocates. From the point of view of someone who travels these areas frequently as a tour guide one thing became very evident; the places with the greatest history of chemical usage also suffered from the greatest problems with leaf curl.
This is very much like the human body; so many times synthetic drugs are used wholesale for a problem, and then later they turn out to cause their own long-term problems. Just look at Hormonal Replacement Therapy where the synthetic (able to be patented) hormones that were in usage for too many years were revealed as the cause of escalating heart attacks, strokes, and deadly cancers among women.
Coincidentally the naturally occurring hormonal materials found in plants like the Mexican wild yam, and even its natural extracts and derivatives like USP Progesterone, provide the relief without the toxic side effects. Why aren’t they recommended more widely? Because the patents on USP Progesterone were signed into the public domain many years ago and it’s impossible to make insanely large profits on that product!
Is this the same thing that has happened with leaf roll? Because Oakville has always been seen as one of Napa’s most profitable vineyards it was, in the past, subject to a large amount of toxic chemicals! I remember visiting at the Martin Estate in Rutherford. The land they planted on would have been considered marginal by the original growers there, not because it’s bad land for growing grapes, but because there was so much ideal land nearby that didn’t require such little tractors to navigate.
The Martins explained to me that the land had never been planted, so it contained that ‘Rutherford Dust’ quality unsullied by the overlay of chemicals that has been in such wide use in that part of the valley. Their neighbor across the way, Frog’s Leap, is an adamant organic grower, one of the valley’s leaders in that area. I have to say as someone who travels this area with an eye for the vineyards, this patch of the valley certainly looks healthy.
The question is, how do you get the residue of old chemicals out of your land? I remember reading a Sci-Fi book many years ago where they talked about plants that were sown because they absorbed toxic radiation into their rock hard beans. Of course sea plants like Kelp, due to the Algin component, are known to do that. What kind of plant can we put in the vineyards to pull out the toxins?
How about fruit trees? Apple seeds contain arsenic that they pull from the soil! Is there a dwarf version with a large appetite for arsenic that could be tucked between the vines that would attract the toxins towards themselves and away from the grapes? Is there a winter ground cover that would pull the toxins out, that could be harvested and turned into a bio fuel? One of the tenants of Bio Dynamics is the inclusion of other plants to establish a healthy balance, this might be one of those cases where the results would be as clear as the color of a leaf.
Ralph & Lahni de Amicis are authors of the Amicis Winery Guides (Find them on Amazon), and owners of Amicis Tours that takes people on tours of the wineries of Napa and Sonoma. They are authors of over twenty books on health, design, business and travel. Their iPhone Apps, The Napa Valley Wine Tour, and The Sonoma Winery Tour are a tour guides approach to these beautiful area, complete with 1000’s of photos and insights. Their articles and products can be found on the sites http://www.amicistours.com and http://www.spaceandtime.com
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