Low Impact Viticulture and Enology (LIVE) Certification
Please contact sales at 206.285.9041 or email info@freerconsulting.com to learn more about how Freer Consulting can assist your vineyard or winery with a LIVE certification.
The Low Impact Viticulture and Enology (LIVE) certification provides vineyards and wineries a way to document and accredit sustainable business practices in both wine-grape and wine production. An independent 3rd-party verifier conducts an audit following a checklist system of required and prohibited elements, as well as ecological options for the entity in question.
LIVE is designed to implement a business process where a vineyard views its operation as a whole system, while creating and maintaining viticulture that is economically viable over time. Successful operators in a LIVE certification are able demonstrate the highest quality in fruit production, while also implementing cultural practices and techniques that minimize the use of agricultural chemicals and pesticides. The goal is to create a food processing entity that protects the farmer, the environment, and society. High biological diversity in the whole vineyard is the goal, achieved through responsible stewardship of soil health and fertility.
The LIVE certification draws its standards from the protocols of the International Organization for the Biological and Integrated Control of Noxious Animals and Plants (IOBC.) Every year LIVE applies for endorsement from the IOBC. This international endorsement proves compliance to GLOBALGAP standards (www.globalgap.org), a recognized and highly regarded standard for agricultural production. The IOBC promotes the use of sustainable, environmentally safe, economically feasible, and socially acceptable control methods of pests and diseases of agricultural and forestry crops. Certified LIVE members are also internationally certified by the IOBC. Vineyard entities that seek to achieve and maintain a LIVE certification will be inspected on-site in years 1 and 2, and every third year thereafter on a random basis. Winery entities seeking to achieve and maintain a LIVE certification will be inspected in year 1, and every third year thereafter.
Among the items in a checklist vineyards will face in a LIVE accreditation audit include practices in ‘direct plant protection’ and ‘indirect plant protection.’
The IOBC defines 'direct plant protection' as "control" of problems rather than "prevention." Priority must be given to natural, cultural, biological and highly specific methods of pest, disease and weed control, and the use of agrochemicals must be minimized. Plant protection products may only be used when justified. The most selective, least toxic, least persistent product or control procedure, which is as safe as possible to humans and the environment, must be selected. Control measures should be used from the more selective to the less selective
1. Use of control measures that act exclusively on target organisms (pests, diseases, weeds)
• Release of sterile insects
• Repeated release of parasitic organisms
• Encouragement of predators
• Introduction of competitive plants
• The use of selective chemicals (Pheromones)
2. The application of less selective control measures, to be used when the previous measures do not prevent economic damage
• The use of semi-selective pesticides (i.e. BT, insect growth regulators, sterol synthesis inhibiting fungicides, etc.,)
• The use of non-selective short persistence pesticides
Indirect plant protection is the use of methods that prevent the outbreak of disease and insect damage beyond an economic threshold. This is an attempt to establish and manage the vineyard in a way to prevent problems that would later need to be addressed by higher off-farm inputs. One example of a preventable problem would be the planting of late-ripening varieties prone to rot that would later need several Botrytis sprays to combat this disease. A second example of a problem that could be prevented would be the installation of a training system that caused too much shading and increased the incidents of disease requiring additional sprays.
1. Optimal use of natural resources
• Planting of varieties and clones adapted to the local conditions
• Appropriate yield expectations
• Planting of resistant varieties and clones
• Weed management appropriate to the level of competition to the crop
• A mixture of varieties and crops
• Appropriate timing of planting and vineyard operations
• Appropriate training systems for the local area
• Ecological compensations areas
2. Farming practices with impacts on the agro-ecosystem
• Avoid the surplus input of nutrients including excess Nitrogen
• Provide for the optimal crop and foliage ratio
• Protect soil fertility through minimum tillage/cultivation
• Manage weeds for plant competition and erosion control
• Enhance biodiversity through habitat management
3. Protection and increase of antagonists (beneficial insects,fungi, plants, etc.).
• Assessing the importance of individual antagonist species
• Release of predatory species
• Management of the habitat
To become a LIVE certified winery, there are various records that should be organized in order to realize a successful accreditation via a 3rd party verifier. LIVE provides boilerplate forms in the Winery Certification Workbook. You may also use your own forms, as long as all required information is available. The following records are required to be presented to an inspector:
• LIVE Scorecard Checklist (submitted to LIVE annually)
• Basic winery grounds plan (submitted to LIVE and updated when necessary)
• Energy usage summary (submitted to LIVE annually)
• Harvest receiving records (presented at inspection)
• Equipment maintenance records (presented at inspection)
• Substances added to wine (presented at inspection)
• Annual cleaning agent inventory (presented at inspection)
Other items that an inspector will use to verify a Scorecard Checklist include (but are not limited to) purchase receipts, bills of lading, receiving records, DEQ Citations within the past 3 years, OSHA logs, and appropriate DEQ permits.
Freer Consulting Company is well-suited to assist a vineyard or winery seeking a LIVE certification through a pre-certification working methodology based on years of field work in environmental assessment, consulting and best agricultural practice implementation. From environmental management systems to Integrated Pest Management (IPM) to records management using affordable, online software, Freer Consulting’s field team can assess, recommend, guide, implement and monitor a wine producer’s entire business model -- from the smallest craft specialist to the highest yield producer.
Please contact sales at 206.285.9041 or email info@freerconsulting.com to learn more about how Freer Consulting can assist your vineyard or winery with a LIVE certification.
