Beaujolais, Burgundy, Champagne, Jura… The qanopée greenhouse will be the nursery of the healthy grape varieties of tomorrow

It’s not strong Knox, but it’s just like. No gold branch is based inside this 5,000 m2 greenhouse, but it is ready to accommodate “the plant material” of the vineyard of tomorrow. Placed in good care, with an army of software controlling humidity, temperature or sunshine. Because any error could be fatal to these future plants, delivered from mid-March to white-coteaux (Marne), near Epernay.

“Software manages the climate or fertilrigation, but I have to monitor each adjustment and provide the unforeseen events. The management of humidity is for example essential because it could cause fungal diseases in the event of too high humidity, ”alert Célia Borrego. The head of the qanopée greenhouse, an engineer by training, is about to watch over the daily 9,500 plants which must arrive in several waves, including 2,000 from the first. The greenhouse will then form a real “nursery” of life -size vine.

“Nothing is left to chance”

In several months, lianas 4 to 5 meters high will climb in this vast glass building. The plants will be pampered thanks to fertirrigation, which provides them with water and nutrients in learned doses administered by a network of pumps and pipes. A confined installation thanks to an “Insect-Proof” system, which protects this production unit from rootstocks and grafts from the intrusion of insects sometimes vectors of illness. Like the cicadel, which is at the origin of the diffusion of the golden flavescence, an incurable disease of the vine. “It is very important to keep this environment confined. We will even make a crawl space several weeks before the arrival of the first plants. Nothing is left to chance, operators on site will intervene with gloves, blouses, overhangs and Charlottes. We must protect the plant material as much as possible, ”insists Célia Borrego.

This green and off-ground culture also aims to meet the needs of a sector jostled by the effects of climate change, by developing more resistant and healthier grape varieties. In Champagne, the winemakers are forced to face the scourge of the golden flavescence, this phylloxera of the 21st century. Recently, 6 ha of contaminated feet were torn off in the Vitryat, in Bassuet (Marne). “What we produce here will make it possible to respond to future requests and to allow winegrowers to plant healthy wood,” anticipates Célia Borrego. “The first harvest will be done next winter. We will try to make quality wood, it will be a test harvest. The 2027 harvest will be the one that will be transmitted to the nurserymen. »»

Similar projects have already been developed in the Bordeaux agglomeration, with an 800 m2 bioclimatic greenhouse on the site of the Bordeaux-Gironde Agrocampus in Blanquefort (Gironde) or this other installation of 1,500 m2 developed by the French Institute Vine and wine in Grau-du-Roi (Gard). This last unit, planted by the sea, wants to define an unique production model in order to meet the new challenges of viticulture.