The Vine and Its Companion Plants: History and Future of a Plant Companionship (French Edition)

The vine has not always been this rationalized monoculture as we know it today. In a richly documented essay, , The vine and its companion plants returns to a forgotten ancestral practice : that of the Plant companionship, where the vine coexisted with trees and plants who accompanied its development.

In this exciting book, Yves Darricau and his daughter Léa Darricau, both of them agricultural engineers, offer a historical and prospective reading of the cohabitation between the vine and other plant species. Through this book, they rehabilitate the notion of "quickly married", an Italian expression referring to the vine "married" to the tree, a practice once widespread throughout the Mediterranean basin.

We discover the fundamental roles of the companion plants : fruit trees, timber trees, nitrogen-fixing plants, aromatic plants, all providing agronomic, environmental, and aesthetic benefits. These forgotten allies ensured soil fertility, ecosystem balance, and provided a natural solution to many agricultural needs.

But with the advent of the intensive viticulture of the 20th century, these Plant associations have disappeared in favor of mechanized practices and the massive use of chemicals. Today, in the face of climate change, to the necessity of preserving the biodiversity and to develop a resilient viticulture, their return is evident.

Léa Darricau, oenologist and engineer specialized in viticultural environment, and Yves Darricau, also a beekeeper and recognized author for his work on the honey trees, they deliver here a vibrant plea for a ecologically intensive viticulture, that is to say, with high ecological value but low input consumption.

The book is intended for both winegrowers, , nature lover, than to the Viticulture professionals in search of sustainable solutions. It offers an inspiring and scientifically grounded vision to reinvent the vineyards of tomorrow.

Relying on historical, agronomic, and aesthetic examples, The vine and its companion plants incites to reconcile culture and nature, so that the Vineyards are becoming living ecosystems again., rich in diversity and full of meaning.

🟩 Article characteristics:

• Type of product : Book

• Title : The vine and its companion plants

• Subtitle : History and Future of a Plant Companionship

• Authors : Yves Darricau, Léa Darricau

• Editor : Le Rouergue

• Collection : Rouergue Nature

• Publication date March 20, 2019

• Format : Paperback

• Number of pages : 192

• Dimensions : 24 x 19.2 x 1.7 cm

• Weight : 668 g

• Language : French

• EAN13 / ISBN : 9782812617515 / 978-2-8126-1751-5