{"id":729,"date":"2026-01-27T10:25:20","date_gmt":"2026-01-27T10:25:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/saintennemond.com\/?p=729"},"modified":"2026-01-27T10:25:22","modified_gmt":"2026-01-27T10:25:22","slug":"on-the-path-to-organic-viticulture-horse-and-plow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/saintennemond.com\/index.php\/en\/2026\/01\/27\/on-the-path-to-organic-viticulture-horse-and-plow\/","title":{"rendered":"On the path to organic viticulture: horse and plow"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>In organic farming, chemical herbicides must not be used to remove weeds (adventive plants) that compete with the vines. Therefore, I eliminate weeds using a plow and a horse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>L\u00e9a and her horses, Hippi and Hermes, carried out several plowing tasks in the vineyard at Saint Ennemond.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>During the season, there are three types of work. A first pass takes place at the end of the year for&nbsp;<strong>hilling<\/strong>&nbsp;(or earthing up): the soil is moved from the inter-row toward the base of the vine. Hilling must be performed at least twice a year: once in the spring and again before the first frosts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Following the hilling comes the&nbsp;<strong>decavaillonnage<\/strong>&nbsp;(un-hilling): this consists of removing the weeds around the vine stock and pushing the soil back to the center of the row. The work took an entire afternoon with two horses, a plowman, and a plowwoman (L\u00e9a). The difficulty lies in maneuvering the plow between each vine to access the \u00ab\u00a0inter-cep\u00a0\u00bb area. This requires intense concentration from both the plow operator and the horse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>At the end of the season and before the harvest, we proceed with&nbsp;<strong>leveling<\/strong>, also known as&nbsp;<strong>griffage<\/strong>&nbsp;(harrowing): this allows for the removal of bindweed and other remaining weeds. The plow used for harrowing is:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"855\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/saintennemond.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Capture-decran-2026-01-27-a-11.03.14-2-855x1024.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-730\" srcset=\"https:\/\/saintennemond.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Capture-decran-2026-01-27-a-11.03.14-2-855x1024.png 855w, https:\/\/saintennemond.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Capture-decran-2026-01-27-a-11.03.14-2-250x300.png 250w, https:\/\/saintennemond.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Capture-decran-2026-01-27-a-11.03.14-2-768x920.png 768w, https:\/\/saintennemond.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Capture-decran-2026-01-27-a-11.03.14-2-1282x1536.png 1282w, https:\/\/saintennemond.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Capture-decran-2026-01-27-a-11.03.14-2-1320x1581.png 1320w, https:\/\/saintennemond.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Capture-decran-2026-01-27-a-11.03.14-2-600x719.png 600w, https:\/\/saintennemond.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Capture-decran-2026-01-27-a-11.03.14-2.png 1436w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 855px) 100vw, 855px\" \/><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In organic farming, chemical herbicides must not be used to remove weeds (adventive plants) that compete with the vines. Therefore, I eliminate weeds using a plow and a horse. L\u00e9a and her horses, Hippi and Hermes, carried out several plowing tasks in the vineyard at Saint Ennemond. During the season, there are three types of&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/saintennemond.com\/index.php\/en\/2026\/01\/27\/on-the-path-to-organic-viticulture-horse-and-plow\/\">Poursuivre la lecture <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">On the path to organic viticulture: horse and plow<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":123,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-729","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-non-classe-en","entry"],"mb":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/saintennemond.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Capture-decran-2025-09-05-a-09.00.59.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"mfb_rest_fields":["title","jetpack_featured_media_url","jetpack_sharing_enabled","gutenberg_elementor_mode"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/saintennemond.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/729","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/saintennemond.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/saintennemond.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/saintennemond.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/saintennemond.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=729"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/saintennemond.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/729\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":731,"href":"https:\/\/saintennemond.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/729\/revisions\/731"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/saintennemond.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/123"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/saintennemond.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=729"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/saintennemond.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=729"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/saintennemond.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=729"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}