Planting wild tulips in vineyards in Muscadet

No possibility of wild tulips surviving this onslaught!

Interesting and encouraging story in Ouest-France on Saturday about the replanting of wild tulips in a couple Muscadet vineyards. Until the 1970s and the arrival of the widespread use weedkillers to control weeds and save money on cultivation, wild tulips were apparently a common sight in the Pays Nantais. Just 12 years later they had become an endangered plant and only saved from extinction by a small plot being planted in the Jardin des Plantes de Nantes.

Now Vincent Caillé (Le Faye d'Homme in Monnières) and Rémi Bonnet of Bonnet-Huteau in La Chapelle-Heulin planted some bulbs in their vineyards last Friday. Both domaines are in conversion to organic viticulture. In the Ouest-France article Vincent Caillé cites the now famous saying of Claude Bourgignon that some of the soils in the Côte d'Or were more dead and devoid of life than those of the Sahara.

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Interesting post here on Hervé Lalau's Chroniques Vineuses about a pesticide article in La Revue de Vins de France and a comment on www.mistelle.fr http://hlalau.skynetblogs.be/post/7516614/severe-monsieur-septime-avec-la-rvf

Mistelle's remarks include this startling comment:

«Le taux de phtalimide dans le Château Canon est 3600 fois supérieur à la concentration maximale admissible de produits phytosanitaires dans l'eau du robinet.» et «phtalimide, une molécule provenant du Folpel. Employé pour lutter contre le mildiou, ce puissant fongicide est considéré comme cancérigène ».

The level of phtalimide in the Château Canon is 3600 times above the concentration permitted in tap water. Phtalimide is a molecule of folpel, which is used to combat mildew. This powerful fungicide is considered to be cancerogenic.

See also www.mistelle.fr