Healthy soils are able to provide critical functions for crops and the environment while lowering input needs. This session will discuss how regenerative practices like improving microbial diversity and livestock re-integration can impact soil ecosystems, their ability to store carbon, and the sustainability and resilience outcomes in vineyards.


Justine Vanden Heuvel, Professor, Cornell

Justine is a Professor of Viticulture in the School of Integrative Plant Science at Cornell University.


Amelie Gaudin, Professor, UC - Davis

Amélie Gaudin is Associate Professor of Agroecology in the Department of Plant Sciences at the University of California Davis. She obtained a Ph.D. in Plant Agriculture at the University of Guelph and worked as an agronomist and crop physiologist at various CGIAR centers to sustainably intensify staple food crop production in smallholder farming systems. Her current research focus on developing and testing sustainable management practices that have conservation of natural resources, agrobiodiversity and soil ecosystems as a basis for improvements. She investigates how cropping system management affects the crop and soil mechanisms involved in maintaining or recovering ecosystem services along stress and fertility gradients. She is interested in better understanding root system and rhizosphere ecology and their potential to harness improvements in soil health, sequester carbon and decrease crop water and nutrients requirements. More information here: https://gaudin.ucdavis.edu