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Lodi Winegrower's Workbook 2nd Edition:
$110 Includes Tax & Shipping
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Evolution of the Lodi
Winegrower's Workbook:
The Lodi Winegrape Commission
(LWC) established a sustainable winegrowing program in 1992. One of the
original program goals was to establish an area-wide program with all growers
implementing sustainable practices in their vineyards. There were many
challenges to address in achieving this goal such as: developing a program that
is useful to the entire range of growers in the district; providing educational
information that encourages growers to implement sustainable winegrowing
practices; provide a measurement system so that growers can gauge how they are
doing in terms of implementing sustainable winegrowing; and providing
recognition for their efforts. The Lodi Winegrowers Workbook 1st Edition was
developed to meet these challenges and utilizes a 'whole farm' approach. In
other words, it considers everything that is done on the farm.
The Lodi Winegrower's
Workbook 1st Edition was designed to:
- Provide a roadmap to help
growers achieve sustainable winegrowing.
- Provide educational
information for implementing specific sustainable winegrowing
practices.
- Provide individual growers
a way to measure the level of adoption of sustainable winegrowing on their
farms and a way to track improvements.
- Provide the opportunity
for adding market value to the winegrape crop through environmental product
labeling ("green" labeling).
- Document the level of
sustainable winegrowing adoption throughout the entire district.
The Lodi Winegrowers
Workbook 1st Edition helped Lodi Growers to:
- Identify areas of
environmental concern on their farms.
- Determine which of these
areas they would like to improve upon.
- Identify areas where
improvement in winegrape quality can be made.
- Develop action plans to
address these concerns.
- Implement these action
plans.
What is in the Lodi
Winegrower's Workbook 2nd Edition
The 2nd edition of the
workbook is greatly enhanced while maintaining the self-assessment format. Some
of the highlights are:
- More than 200 pages of new
content, almost tripling its size
- 275 color
photos
- 61 new sustainable issues,
adding to the 105 in the first workbook
- Two new chapters:
- Vineyard
Establishment and Replanting
- Shop and Yard
Management
- Two greatly expanded
chapters:
- Ecosystem Management
(formerly Habitat)
- Human Resources
Management
- The workbook is indexed
for quick referencing
The Lodi Winegrower's
Workbook 2nd Edition is a comprehensive self-assessment addressing, in the
following chapters, the complex processes of growing quality winegrapes
sustainably:
- Ecosystem
Management
- Vineyard Establishment and
Replanting
- Viticulture
- Soil
Management
- Water
Management
- Pest
Management
- Human Resources
Management
- Shop and Yard
Management
- Wine Quality and Customer
Satisfaction
The winegrowers of the Lodi
Winegrape Commission believe that by following these sustainable farming
principles we will not only protect our land and the community we live in, but
will produce higher quality wines more reflective of the place and people that
grew them.
How to use the
Workbook:
Each workbook chapter is
divided into a number of issues that are critically important for growing high
quality winegrapes sustainably in Lodi, in other words, using practices that
are environmentally sound, socially equitable and economically viable. Each
issue is divided into 4 categories that cover the range from the most desirable
set of sustainable farming practices (Category 4) for that issue to the least
desirable set of practices (Category 1). The person filling out the workbook
reads the descriptions listed in each category and decides which one best
describes their farming practices for that issue (View
Example Worksheet).
Each workbook chapter has an accompanying
summary evaluation sheet that lists for each issue the workbook page number
where the issue is located, a box for the four categories, and a 'not
applicable' box (View example summary evaluation sheet). For each issue
that is evaluated, a check mark is made in the appropriate box (e.g. 1, 2, 3,
or 4). If the issue is not relevant to the vineyard being assessed then the
"not applicable" box is checked.
After one has gone through the entire
workbook evaluating their vineyard on each issue, they then look at the summary
evaluation sheets and use them as a guide to decide what issue or issues they
would like to improve upon. This is done by developing an action plan for each
issue selected. Since category 1 indicates the least desirable practice from an
environmental and/or winegrape quality perspective it is likely that issues
where category 1 has been checked are ones that should be the focus of an
action plan. In the action plan the grower writes down what issue is of
concern, the category checked for that issue, what they are going to do to act
on this concern to be able to move to a higher category, and when this action
will begin (View example action plan)
Educational
information is provided for many of the issues in the workbook that helps in
designing and implementing action plans (View
example page with educational information)
If one views
sustainable winegrowing as a continuum from low sustainability on one end to
high sustainability on the other, then the workbook helps a grower see where
they are on that continuum and where they should be going for every single
issue important in winegrowing.
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