Europe is a major global producer of wine. Thus, the ‘vineyard’ as agricultural ecosystem is an important part of many croplands and soils are major players within this ecosystem in many different ways.
The “Terroir concept” has become popular in many parts of the world. Climate, geology, geomorphology, and soils are the main environmental factors which drive the terroir effect at different scales, besides management.
Due to both a greater need to better understand regional to site variations in viticulture and the growth in spatial analytic technologies, the study of terroir has shifted from a largely descriptive regional science to a more applied, technical research field. Similarly, public awareness for ecosystem functioning has led to more quantitative approaches in evidencing the relations between management and the ecosystem services in vineyards. This symposium will focus on several aspects of terroir and ecosystem services research:
1) quantifying terroir component influences on plant growth, fruit composition and quality, 2) the metagenome approach to unravel the biogeochemical cycles of both macro- and micronutrients, the functional diversity of terroirs, and regional fingerprinting (examining the chemical signature of products for authentication), 3) interaction between vineyard management practices and effects on soil and water quality as well as biodiversity and related ecosystem services, 4) sustainable management of terroir (organic farming, conservation agriculture).