Researchers form the University of New England Zenon Czenze (left) and Heidi Kolkert in the field with recording devices.
Vigneron Matt Fowles has a secret army protecting the vines on his Strathbogie Ranges property.
The airborne ‘soldiers’ emerge at night-time and gobble up many of the insect pests that threaten the vines.
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The details are only now being brought to light with university research, which has identified the micro-bats which sweep through the vines in the Strathbogie Ranges on the Fowles Wine property in Victoria.
The University of New England has used audio recorders to identify the echo location clicks emitted by the bats when searching for prey.
It’s the most intensive study of its kind, mounted in an Australian vineyard, and after a year of work has turned up a staggering 172 species of fauna visiting the Strathbogie Hills vineyards.
Matt has always known the family property has hosted a bat population, but it wasn’t until the study that he was faced with the scale of the flying helpers which were eating the moth pests.
A micro-bat devours a huge number of vineyards pests. They have powerful jaws and sharp teeth.
Some time ago a fellow nature lover hosted a meeting at his house and the presenter set up some recording equipment and presented what had been recorded.
“She mentioned there were so many micro-bats and it sat in my mind,” Matt said.
“Being a keen observer of nature, I started to notice more and more micro-bats.
“Sometimes you look up and mistake them for birds. I hadn’t at that point considered the impact on the vineyards.
”It wasn’t until I saw an article on the ABC that I read about the impact of micro-bats on cotton fields.
“That’s when I thought: that might be happening here.
“We invited the university people to come down.”
Two pests which attack the vine leaves are light brown apple moth and grapevine moth and the conventional approach is to spray for them.
The micro-bats are voracious predators which can eat up to 100 per cent of their body weight in a day.
At the heart of the project is the desire to find out what the bats are doing in the vineyard and then work out how to support the natural predation on the pests.
Matt Fowles wants farming to be regenerative, more than just sustainable.
Photo by
Colin Page
“Basically we wanted a set of baseline data to really understand what is there,” Matt said.
“We believed the micro-bats were managing the pests. We now know this for sure. The data supports this.”
Matt Fowles, his wife Luise and children Lilli, Ella and Mathilda.
Photo by
Colin Page
Pest predation has been more noticeable on the edges of the vineyards, and Matt suspects this may be due to the way the bats use echo-location.
To make it easier for them to use reflected sound waves, and to penetrate further into the vines, Matt is pondering how to create some structures which reflect the echoes, which he has dubbed ‘Bat-Nav’.
“The big-picture aim of the ‘Bats and Wine’ program is to look at ways we can farm in nature’s image — that is to work with the power of nature to create a win-win for both winemaking and the environment,” he said.
“We’re really excited about the potential flow-on effects of this research for Australia’s viticulture and farming sectors in controlling agricultural pests and, in turn, providing a huge economic benefit — saving the country’s producers $50 million a year.
“Our enduring philosophy at Fowles is to harness the land’s ecology to create more sustainable and resilient farming systems, producing quality in abundance — and we’re definitely ‘walking the talk’ with our research and practices.”
GOING BATTY
The ‘Bats and Wine’ study has delivered a number of recommended actions for Fowles Wine to enhance habitat connectivity and support threatened species and conservation (some of which are already being done), including:
revegetate and maintain buffer zones around nearby Discovery Creek and Burnt Creek tributaries;
link existing vegetation to high-value roadside habitat with large hollow-bearing trees;
retain isolated paddock trees which serve as vital roosts and foraging sites for bats and birds;
maintain long grasses between grapevines to attract beneficial insects and insectivorous birds;
install bat boxes near vineyards and water sources to support insect-eating bat populations; and
engage with conservation organisations to implement best practices.
