COVER CROPS in South African Vineyards

FOREWORD

FOREWORD By Kobus Louw

This book is the culmination of more than 50 years of research on cover crops at the Nietvoorbij research centre based in Stellenbosch. Research on cover crops and tillage were started in the early 1970’s by then youngsters Dawid Saayman, Leopoldt van Huyssteen and Johan van Zyl. The research, however, really got going in the mid-1980’s when Johan Fourie joined the team as a young researcher fresh out of University.

The work at Nietvoorbij became World renowned and was awarded many prizes and honours over the years. It must also be noted that tillage and cover crop research are long-term endeavours. Results sometimes take many years to manifest. The research was started when agricultural research was still fully funded by Government. With the privatisation of research in the early 1990’s, most of the trials initiated by Johan Fourie still had 10–12 years to go and were in danger of being terminated due to the costs thereof and budget restraints. It took the vision of one man, Jan Booysen then Manager ofWinetech one of the industry funders of research, to realise the importance of these long-term projects and to support the projects with the necessary funding.The other industries then followed suit. One should also understand that these were the early days of cover crop research. Monocultures were adopted to give very specific answers absent at

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