On 30 May, WineLand Media and other media and wine lovers got invited to see what Bosman Adama are doing towards sustainability and what the impact has been so far.
The arrival of technical manager Dan Swart in 2015 has resulted in extensive efforts to improve the soil, because healthy soils lead to healthy vines and healthy grapes.
The first vineyards commenced its organic conversion in 2016. Today 16ha of vineyards are certified organic, another 6,5 ha are in conversion, but the entire farm is farmed regeneratively.
Organic agriculture and regenerative agriculture do differ. “Organic agriculture is farming in a way according to the set of rules and regulations set out by the European Union. Regenerative agriculture is a way of farming to improve your ecosystem functionality. We do that by not applying insecticides, genetically modified organisms and so forth,” Dan says. A proactive approach was taken by him and his team to support a transition away from a chemical-based monocultural agriculture. This led to the compost tea project.
The compost tea project
In the past, organic fertilisers were available only in pellet form. Due to seasonal rainfall tapering off, these pellets often don’t dissolve properly when distributed in vineyards in spring, so they can’t feed the vines as planned. The solution was to erect a compost tea plant whereby a ‘tea’ can be brewed and fed directly into the drip irrigation system running through the vineyards.
The tea is brewed on the farm and supplied to the vines via fertigation within four hours of brewing to retain its efficacy. This tea builds up the naturally occurring micro-organisms in the soil so that no synthetic chemicals need to be applied. A natural balance is established within the soil, allowing the entire ecosystem between soil and vine to maintain itself. In this way, the soil is built up with naturally occurring micro-organisms without the need for synthetic chemicals. A natural balance is established within the soil, allowing the entire ecosystem between soil and vine to maintain itself.
How do you know you are improving the ecosystem functionality through this practice? “We measure it. Annually we perform a micronised soil analysis to determine how the soil looks and how many microorganisms are present in the vineyard,” says Dan.
Already, after applying compost tea on a regular basis for more than a year, soil tests show that the carbon levels in the soil have doubled.
Bring on the sheep
Bosman Adama’s organic farming operations have led to sheep grazing at Lelienfontein.
“As a result of the wetness and worms, we chose dormer sheep rather than wool sheep breeds,” PD, viticulturist at Bosman Adama, says. He further explains that they are domesticated animals and carnivores and therefore are suitable for the vineyards.
The organic vines are planted on a high wire system as opposed to the old vines, which were trellised on a vertical shoot system to protect them from sheep damage.
As a flock, the animals roam freely on the farm. They munch the weeds, trim back the cover crops between the vine rows, and fertilise the soil as they go. “However, they like the juicy ripe grapes as much as we do so we have to move them up to our farm in the Karoo for the summer.”
During our visit, we had the chance to watch these gardeners in action at the Draai-draai vineyard. The vineyard is named after its sharp turns found on the site. It takes a great tractor driver to move around these vineyards. “This was one of the very first vineyards we found in 2002,” says Corlea Fourie, vineyard and wine manager at Bosman Adama.

Draai-draai vineyard
We ended the day with a delicious lunch back at the cellar, where we also sampled the naturally good wines made from healthy soils and healthy grapes.
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