Native Cover Crops in Vineyards: Attracting beneficial organisms to provide biological pest control and a sustainable future for Australian viticulture.

The trend for viticulture is towards becoming chemical free, for reasons of consumer pressure and future sustainability. Without the use of pesticides biological control of pests is the only way that this can be achieved. Currently many vineyards plant introduced cover crops which attract natural enemies of vineyard pests, however these crops are costly to maintain. Native cover crops provide food and shelter for natural enemies of vineyard pests while being low in maintenance and cost. My project will assess and compare several native cover crop species in terms of levels of natural enemies attracted to the grape vines as well as comparing these levels to those of mainstream introduced cover crop species.