The Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) is currently bringing together the 15 partners of the Soil&WineResidues project in Santiago de Compostela, which is being launched with co-funding from the European Union through the South-West European Space Territorial Cooperation Programme (Sudoe).
The project, which has a budget of over €1.5 million, will last three years and aims to address the deterioration of soil health and quality in the wine-growing sector in Spain, Portugal and the French regions of New Aquitaine, Occitanie and Auvergne.
“These areas comprise a region with the largest vineyard area in the European Union, the world’s largest wine producer. However, their wine sector is facing the deterioration of soil health/quality, inadequate management of lignocellulosic waste (stems, pomace, leaves, branches and discarded fruit) and dependence on and impact of synthetic agrochemicals such as pesticides and fertilisers. In this regard, the project seeks to move towards a production model based on the circular economy. Through a combination of various technological approaches, we propose the eco-efficient on-site use (without transport to a treatment plant) of lignocellulosic waste generated in vineyards to improve the health/quality of their soils, develop commercial products and obtain renewable energy,” says Juan José Villaverde, senior scientist at the CSIC at the MBG, who is the principal investigator and coordinator of the project.
The research team is made up of entities from Spain, Portugal and France (MBG, Aeris, Bodegas Paco & Lola, Fundación Juana de Vega, Mancomunidad del Salnés, Association pour l’Environnement et la Sécurité en Aquitaine, Vinovalie, the Intermunicipal Community of Bajo Alentejo, the Agricultural Society of Monte Novo e Figueirinha, and the universities of Vigo, Santiago de Compostela, Barcelona, Clermont Auvergne, Aveiro, and Lisbon). The CSIC is represented by the MBG’s Soil Biochemistry and Quality group, which for decades has focused its work on studying soil quality and the effects of degradation processes and conservation and recovery practices on it. It is worth highlighting its more than 40 years of experience in the recovery and use of various organic wastes with the aim of increasing plant production and/or restoring degraded areas (pollution, forest fires).
“The project has 15 beneficiary partners and 92 associates transversally related to the wine sector in these three countries, which will enable decisions to be taken at a territorial level in different vineyards with similar characteristics, transfer and capitalise on the results at a transnational level through more holistic management of vineyards in south-western Europe, improve the development of rural areas through the effective use of the resources and productive capacities of their industries, thus attracting human capital and increasing both the competitiveness and resilience of the wine sector in the face of climate change and future crises,” the MBG points out.
“Only through initiatives of this kind, involving the main players in the wine sector, public administrations, research and education centres, technology companies, consumers and society in general, can we achieve the effective implementation of circular economy and eco-efficiency models, which involve the proper management of wine-growing land and the revaluation and use of lignocellulosic waste generated in vineyards,” says Villaverde, who is pursuing his research career in environmental technologies with the capacity to improve the eco-efficient and biorefinery-assisted management of agroforestry systems.
Project phases
The consortium is meeting for the first time at the MBG headquarters in Santiago de Compostela and at the Galician Supercomputing Centre (Av. de Vigo, s/n. Campus Vida) for the so-called ‘kick-off meeting’, a meeting to manage the execution of the research.
Tomorrow, the official presentation of the project will take place in a hybrid in-person and online event, with speeches by Rafael Zas, director of MBG; Sabela Fole, vice-president of the Mancomunidade do Salnés; Óscar Prado, director of Aeris Tecnologías Ambientales; and Juan José Villaverde, principal investigator and scientific coordinator of the project. The 92 partners associated with the project will also participate in the online event, which will take place on 2 July.
The project will carry out two interconnected pilot activities during its three-year implementation period.
On the one hand, it is planned to design, develop and build a prototype solid-state fermenter that will make it possible to obtain, in just a few days and in the wineries themselves, amendments with, for example, biostimulant and/or biopesticide action from lignocellulosic waste.
“In this way, we will reduce the use of synthetic inputs such as pesticides and fertilisers. In addition, we will study how these amendments affect soil properties and the microorganisms that inhabit it. Understanding their effect on the edaphic system will be key to developing amendments adapted to each type of soil and proceeding with the sustainable and eco-efficient management of wine-growing soils,” explains the research team.
Furthermore, the project envisages the fractionation of lignocellulosic wine residues through biorefining processes, the development of new high added-value products focused on the food, pharmaceutical and cosmetics industries, and the production of biogas as a renewable energy source.
