Soil Biological Quality Assessment to Improve Decision Support in the Wine Sector

Biodiversity is an increasingly important aspect of wine production. The assessment of agro-ecosystem biodiversity is highly complex due to the heterogeneity of the elements involved in the evaluation. For this reason, wine companies have expressed a need for a decision support system (DSS) capable of dealing with this complexity, integrating assessments referring to the whole production system within a single tool. In this study a DSS developed for wine sector biodiversity management assessment is introduced. The DSS, called BIOPASS®, is made up of different sections relating to three compartments in the winemaking process (the soil, the vine and wine). Assessment of the physical, chemical and biological components of soil is a key element of the DSS. We investigate the relationship between biological soil quality (represented by the QBS-ar index), environmental conditions and the type of farming (organic or conventional). 70 soil samples were analysed in different Italian viticultural contexts. The model highlighted the relationships between QBS-ar and meteorological variables (air temperature and precipitation) as well as a positive relationship with organic farming systems. These results provide useful information for understanding agroecosystem biodiversity and will be integrated within the DSS for assessment of soil quality.