fascicolo / issue 1 - CRA-PAV

Petria - “Dosi ridotte di rame e prodotti alternativi per la difesa antiperonosporica”exposure, soil, adaptability to grapevine cultivation), the different ways of conduction,and the expected responses in the different cultivars. The choice of the farms involved,to which technical assistance was given in itinere, was well planned.For the information and its diffusion, we used our common channels toaddress our social base, such as magazines, news published on the webpages ofAMAB (www.amabmarche.it) and the project (www.progettoramemarche.it). Indeed,the project webpage will contain the entire project results, and will be a further meansfor strategic dialogue with farms, research agencies, public administration, andvarious associations. Finally, the meetings held up to now to present the initial resultsof this study represent the first way of communicating to farms and within farms. Atthe production centre, comparison meetings were even proposed to make evaluationsconcerning the use of the low copper rates, now fixed in viticulture at 6 kg/ha, afterthe approval of Regulation (EC) 473/2002, which corrects annex I, II and IV fromRegulation (EC) 2092/91. The need to optimize the rates with formulations that aremore efficient and are aimed at the chemistry and stoichiometry, makes the researchmore interesting for viticulture farmers that still see copper as the future of downymildew defence.During the study in the farms and the discussion meetings with theviticulturists, new knowledge has been gathered that will be interesting to study indetail; for example, evaluation of the toxic effects of residual copper in the biosphere,and the different interactions with microorganisms in the biological environmental.In the future, this possibility to evaluate reductions in doses and optimizationof distribution of copper so as to have a lower toxicological impact may well beconsidered as a good target for viticulture in general, and for the organic agriculturein particular.Key words: Biological control, Grapevine, Organic agriculture, Copper treatments.41