Paicines Ranch Vineyard

Integrating Livestock as a Management Tool

Paicines Ranch, located south of Hollister, has been operated since the mid-19^th century and was purchased by Sallie Calhoun and Matt Christiano in 2001. It consists of 7,600 acres in total, which is divided between 570 acres of farmland and the rest grazing land. The grazing land is temporarily leased to Joe Morris of T&O Cattle Co./Morris Grassfed Beef, which markets grassfed beef directly to the public. Paicines Ranch is managed by Kelly Mulville, who is a Certified Educator with Holistic Management International (HMI), and also a UC Santa Cruz Farm and Garden graduate.

Paicines Ranch’s irrigated bottomland was previously farmed by Earthbound Farms, but the ranch has taken it back and is currently restoring the soils through cover crops and planned grazing. They plan to incorporate a larger variety of crops into their production, resulting in a polyculture of fruit and nut trees and vegetable crops.

Sheep as a Management Strategy

Mulville explains that prescribed grazing with sheep, when done correctly to avoid overgrazing, has multiple benefits for the vineyard. As the sheep graze the cover crops, they also eat suckers and weeds and incorporate their urine, manure, and litter into the soil with their hooves. This in turn helps to keep external fertilizer inputs low, although they may use foliar sprays if deficiencies arise. He plans to graze as early as January until well into the growing season. While use of sheep in the winter is common in vineyards, they are typically taken out when the vines start to leaf out, since sheep will eat any grape leaves within reach. In an earlier trial in Sonoma, Mulville set out to find a way for the vineyard to graze the sheep at any time during the year. 

“The trial was conducted on a 0.2 hectare vineyard in the Alexander Valley, of Northern California, during the winter, spring and early summer of 2009. Once the system was in place and tested, four medium-sized adult sheep were introduced and monitored for six months - three during which the vines were leafed out. Electrified net fencing was utilized to create small paddocks within the vineyard maintaining stock density at an equivalent of 79 sheep per hectare for most of the trial period.”1

Mulville found the trial accomplished the following:

• Eliminated the need for any mechanical cultivation, tillage or mowing both between rows and under the vines as this task was accomplished through simple grazing moves. This corresponded to 4-8 fewer tractors passes per row/per year and some of the forage consumed was converted to fertility in the vineyard.
• Eliminated the need for hand-suckering of the vine trunks as sheep browsing performed this task. Twenty hours of labour saved per year/per acre and suckers are converted to manure.
• Sheep consumed all canopy lateral and leaf thinnings (removed by hand and placed on ground). Converted this material into manure and eliminated need for disking into soil.
• Reduced on-site irrigation use by 80% from the previous year (2008) during which the vineyard was managed biodynamically and organically. Sheep were grazed from January until the end of March during the non-trial year.
• Increased yield (over previous year) by 1,247 pounds per acre, or about 0.62 Tons.
• Provided on-site fertility in the form of high-quality dung and urine, eliminating the need to haul in compost or other fertilizers. 2

Utilizing UC Cooperative Extension Sample Costs to Produce Organic Wine Grapes (Cabernet Sauvignon) North Coast Region (2005), Mulville calculated the savings per acre in his trial as follows: $112 – hand suckering, $116– weeding, $62 – mowing/disking, $68 – fertilizing, and $33 –irrigation, for a total savings of $391 per acre. If the additional yield was actually due to these methods and not just to the year’s favorable climate, then that would increase the return on these practices. 

This savings is offset by costs associated with the sheep. He calculated the annual cost of the electric deterrent system at $96 per acre. The cost of the sheep themselves depends on whether they are rented, borrowed, or purchased. You could buy sheep (and later sell them), run a neighbor’s sheep, or hire someone to custom graze.3 But the sheep must be managed to prevent overgrazing and excessive trampling in the vineyard.

A group of neighbors could work with a flock of sheep. Someone goes once a day to check on the sheep and moves them every 1-3 days. He states that little savings will be realized if the sheep are only grazed in winter if the grower must pay for the sheep; he estimates that about $100/acre can be saved if the grower has their own sheep.

When he began the trial in Sonoma he did not expect the water savings, which was the biggest surprise. He credits these savings to the permanent cover provided by the cover crops, which increases infiltration of rain, and reduces run-off.  Trying to mimic nature led to unanticipated benefits.

Incorporating the use of animals in the system also works well with Mulville’s management style; he prefers to reduce his use of machinery and equipment and instead have the sheep do the work. Keeping the ground covered means that less irrigation is required. By practicing no-till, compaction from tractors is also reduced, and mycorrhizae are allowed to flourish. “They’re as good as the vine at getting water”, says Mulville. "It is a different kind of farming, a different culture of management, where you are not dealing with machinery but instead with animals.  So many farmers are obsessed with machines."

As for meeting the vines' nutrient needs, rather than being concerned with dialing in a particular nitrogen level, he believes that with a very healthy soil with good pH balance, nitrogen takes care of itself. The plan for the vineyard at Paicines Ranch is to use no additional inputs.

Cover Crops and Grazing Trials

In 2018-19 Mulville planted a winter cover crop mix of oats, bell beans, and lana vetch in the vineyards.

On the irrigated cropland that they recently re-acquired, Paicines Ranch has conducted trials with various cover crops such rye, Molina, wheat, oats, vetch, and peas combined with grazing. Some of this land was harvested, including a block of triticale. They were also able to harvest and sell oat seed from a 76-acre block.

Future Plans

Paicines Ranch plans to continue to build upon their prescribed grazing system and other areas of production. One way of doing this will be to plant fruit and nut trees, grains, seed crops, forage, hedgerows and eventually vegetables in a type of permaculture system. They plan to alley crop the vegetables between the tree crops.