It’s all in the preparation…

Biodynamics is a system and philosophy of farming that recognises the soil and entire farm as a living organism.  The respect for and care of the soil plays a prominent role. The biodynamic preparations form the cornerstone of biodynamic activity, and create balance and health in our soils and plants. 

We use a range of eight preparations within our farm and vineyards. One of the most important of these is Preparation 500. This is made when cows’ manure is buried inside a cow’s horn over winter, and then stirred into rainwater at body temperature to form a vortex before being applied to the vineyard by hand. This stimulates soil bacteria and fungi, improving soil structure and microbiological activity.

Three of our vineyard interns have been helping us make this and spread it across our entire vineyard…

David Wright, Farnham, UK

The digging up and application of preparation 500 marks the rejuvenation of life in the land and the beginning of a new growth cycle. For me it represents the intentions of the human custodians of the land to be aware of, and understand, the rhythms of nature to manage it productively. Unearthing the horns was a very thorough and insightful process and the myriad life forms that came up with them sparked many thoughtful discussions. Everyone that makes their living from Seresin vineyards was involved in the stirring and broadcasting of the 500. Together we covered every inch of every property, walking the flats, hills, creeks and pastures from angles I hadn’t seen before. This gave me a new perspective that cannot be gained from the cab of a tractor, a focus on the details that only comes when you give it a chance. I came away feeling good about the season ahead and confident that I had conveyed this positive message to the land.

Rose Capriola, California

My very first 500 experience proved to be an energizing one for the body, mind, and soul.  As we stood and stirred wilfully, I couldn’t help but notice the beautiful diversity of our participants, all brought together to inoculate the land with the spirit of biodynamics.   We flowed as a group through the vines, spreading our 500 and cow pat pit mixture with the flicks of our wrists, gaining momentum as we walked.  Smiles dawned on faces and the enjoyment was palpable.  Through this experience I was again reminded of the value of the ‘we’ in biodynamics and of the wonderful impact our community can have on the land that we tend to joyfully.  

Charlotte Javelle, Saint-Etienne, France

Even after 9 months at Seresin I’m still impressed by people’s involvement. The 500 experience was a great lesson in openness and sharing.  Barrels, sticks, water, Preparation 500… everything needs to be ready for the “ceremony”. Everybody gave a little bit of himself stirring the preparation during one hour and trying to make the best vortex ever! Even the children participated with keen interest and happiness. Then, buckets and brushes in hand, the preparation was sprayed across all of the property.

Laughing and singing animated these afternoons. It’s amazing how this act can combine a range of different nationalities, ages and cultures. Maybe we should use cow poo and water everywhere in this world to bring more respect, peace and well-being! I really think that the land is able to feel and memorise all the love, all the human implication and all the energy brought by people. Thereby it can give us the best quality in our grapes and olives.

Horses Of Course

It's the time of year when our three vineyards receive their annual application of of Biodynamic Preparation 500. Last week, we hand applied 500 to our Raupo Creek vineyard.

Staff hand-stirring Preparation 500 for spraying on our Raupo Creek Vineyard.

Our Estate Manager Colin Ross took a short video of the staff standing at the top of the hill ready to spread the preparation over the Pinot Noir vines.

And yesterday it was the Home Vineyard's turn; using both staff and our one horsepower tractor, Bill.

Six year old Bill and his brother Tom are Seresin's newest additions. They came to us six weeks ago, and have been being trained by Phil Amberger. Phil and his brother Ron are shown here driving the horse sprayer.

Bill and Tom pull our specially designed Seresin Bertolini Horse Drawn Sprayer, which will spray up to 30 hectares of our Home Vineyard with Biodynamic Preparations and Compost Tea this year.

Vine Life - Bud Burst

Last week our Semillon vine reached the Bud Burst stage. This is when the vine leaves dormancy - the sap starts to flow through the vine, the hard scales that have protected the tiny buds all winter peel back and let the vine really start to take off. It's a sure sign Spring has arrived!

And just a week later, the first leaves have started to unfold.

At the moment we are spraying compost tea across our entire estate, and this week the Home vineyard and the Semillon block got a turn.

Spraying compost tea helps create a culture of diverse biology on the vines and in the soil. This helps break down the canes (the pruned wood from last years vine growth) that we mulched into the soil under the vines through Winter. This biology also consumes any powdery mildew spores which are present on the vines from last year, and essentially does a big Spring clean of the vines and soil. This means we can delay spraying sulphur across the estate, because this biology is doing some of the cleaning up that sulphur would otherwise do. This Semillon block is completely sulphur free, so it's particularly important there is a strong, healthy environment to begin the growing season with.

The diverse biology that compost tea encourages also helps keep all the biology in check. Any disease cells present, like botrytis or powdery mildew, have to compete with all the beneficial bacteria and fungi. This maintains a balance in the biology and makes it very difficult for any particular species to get out of control.

Our compost tea also contains some biodynamic preparation 507 in it this time of year, to help protect the vulnerable new buds from frost damage. 507 is made with Valerian, a plant which has properties which excite bacteria - essentially making them move around and generate a small amount of warmth around the buds.

Hands-On the Land

This spring, to nourish the land with both physical matter and our energy, we went for a real hands-on approach in applying Preparation 500 to our land. While we always hand-stir a portion of our Preparation 500, and always apply it by hand to a few select areas, because of the size of our Estate, most of it is generally stirred and applied with machines. Stirring and applying the Preparation 500 by hand is said to allow your energy to enter the Preparation 500 and bring a sense of aliveness to the property. We thought we’d give our land a little extra love by trying to stir and apply as much of our Preparation 500 by hand as we could. We put in an excellent effort! We hand-stirred a total of 32 barrels, with 4800 litres, over a 4-day period and hand-applied Preparation 500 to as much of our Estate as was physically practical. As part of this, we were able to cover our entire home block by hand, grapes, olives, orchards, gardens, animals and all! Staff, family, friends and colleagues joined us to form a band of over 35 merry stirrers and flickers. The joy and positive energy that spread over the Estate was palpable as we twirled and skipped, flicking our 500 on the land that provides for us in so many ways.

Dandelion Days

Spring is upon us and the glowing yellow of the dandelions grace our land. A few rainy days followed by nicely warming temperatures has seen them burst forth in full force. On a sunny ‘flower’ day, we got a band of merry pickers together to gather dandelions, opened to just the right stage, for our Preparation 506. Aman, Lisa, me, Sean and Mauricio are pictured here with our sunny bounty. The flowers will be dried and stored until next autumn to be used in our preparation making.

Earthly Autumn

Autumn marks the time when the Earth is inhaling, the atmosphere is opened up to allow the cosmic forces to come down and penetrate the Earth, the soil is absorbing all of the energy and potential for growth for the coming year. In the realm of biodynamics, this is the time for making and using Preparation 500.

On an Earth day in a descending moon after the Autumn Equinox, we all paused in our day to come together to make our Preparation 500. To do this, we filled cow horns with fresh manure from our lovely cow and bury them over the autumn and winter. The manure will absorb the energies that are coming into the inhaling Earth and the horn helps to collect and direct them into the manure.

We also apply Preparation 500 in the autumn. This is the time of year when the plants are most connected with the Earth. Growth above-ground is reduced or halted, while the plants remain firmly rooted in the soil. Root growth continues and all of the nutrients in the plant are directed here and to woody parts of the plant. Preparation 500 enhances the biology in the soil, increases the cation exchange capacity of the soil and attracts worms. All of this makes nutrients more available to the plants and more firmly connects them to the soil and enhances the symbiotic relationships that occur there.

This autumn, we applied Preparation 500 in a descending moon at a time when the Moon was opposite to Saturn. The Moon supports calcium processes, while Saturn supports those of silica. It is thought that during this time of opposition, both of these forces are enhanced and that by applying Preparation 500 at this time its effectiveness can be enhanced, leading to stronger, healthier plants. The Preparation 500 must be stirred in warm water for one hour before applying it and for the first time we used one of our purpose-built compost tea tanks that creates opposing vortices for stirring it. Notice the little vortexes in the photo from the tank (just right of center).... They are identical to those created using our flowform. As always, we stirred a smaller amount by hand to place our good intentions into it.

We’ll come back to Preparation 500 in the spring again, when the Earth begins to warm and awaken, and exhale in a burst of life.

Busy with Biodynamics

The autumn is a busy time of year for our biodynamic activities. It is the time when all of the energies and nutrients that have made their way into the vegetative part of the plants now return to the earth (think of it as the earth inhaling). It’s at this time that we make and bury the majority of our preparations so they can receive this returning goodness. During the last descending moon cycle, while the moon was in an earth sign (April 28th and 29th) we made our biodynamic preparation 500 (filled cow horns with fresh manure), 503 (stuffed cow intestines with dried chamomile flowers), 504 (packed a clay pipe with dried stinging nettle) and 506 (wrapped dried dandelion in a cow mesentery) [pictured clockwise]. These were then each buried in their own clay pots, as was our preparation 502 (stags bladders filled with dried yarrow) which had been hanging in our walnut tree for the summer. We also made our preparation 505 (filled a cow and sheep skull with oak bark and submerged them into a barrel of water and decaying vegetation) and unearthed our preparations 501 (cow horns filled with ground quartz) and 504 (the stinging nettle from last year).

Making Rainbows

At the start of veraison, the time when the berries begin to ripen, we apply biodynamic preparation 501 – the horn silica preparation. This preparation is made from quartz crystal (silica) that has been ground to a very fine powder and then buried in the soil in cow horns over the summer. It is said that the properties of the silica help the vines to connect more strongly to the cosmic or airy forces, particularly sunlight. By applying this to our ripening grapes, we hope to increase the amount of photosynthesis the plant is performing and the amount of sugar in the plants, therefore the fruit. It’s like giving the vines a boost of liquid sunshine.

The application of preparation 501 begins well before sunrise… at 5:30 a.m. our dedicated team begins by filling barrels (to be hand-stirred) and our flow form with warm water – it needs to be right around body temperature before we can add in the 501. The preparation 501 is first mixed in a bucket and then introduced into the larger volume of water. We use 2.5g of the preparation in 32.5L of water for one hectare. We stir this for one hour, creating vortices, everyone taking turns.




Just as the sun is rising, we set out to apply all we have made in just one hour – before the sun begins to warm things up. We use a very fine mist that hovers in the air... Here you can see Sonya at Raupo and Kevin off in the distance, and if you are lucky you get to make a rainbow!

The Makings of a Cowpat Pit

A cowpat pit (CPP), also known as 'barrel compost', is a fermentation of cow manure, assisted by the biodynamic preparations. It is essentially a process to convert the manure into beautiful compost that contains concentrated amounts of fungi, bacteria and the energies from the biodynamic preparations. There are many variations on how to make CPP, but here's a peek into how we do ours here at Seresin Estate.

It all begins with a good supply of cow manure, fondly referred to as moo poo, preferably from lactating cows. The best way to do this is have your own dairy cows, but in the absence of that at the moment we were able to get some brilliant manure from a dairy farm in Linkwater on the north coast of the South Island to mix in with a bit from our biodynamic cows. The next key ingredient is some willing volunteers to help do the mixing - on this day in December, we had lots of help from Clive, MJ, Jan and Colin. With about 60kg of manure loaded into a trailer, we mixed it with shovels by turning it from one side of the trailer to the other for about one hour. It has been said that it takes 40 minutes to deprogram the manure and then 20 minutes to reprogramme it. While mixing, we gradually add in powdered egg shells (that we dried and ground) - about 200g per pit, or a total of 4-5 half shovels, and basalt dust - around 300g per pit, so 5-6 half shovels full in total. During the mixing the texture of the manure changes, becoming light and airy and then almost silky. You can tell when you are done purely by the changes in texture that have occurred.

While the mixing is being completed, we wet down our pits and get the preparations ready. We like to use balls of CPP from a pit that is fully decomposed as the vehicle for the preparations, to pass on some of the goodness they've got. So we make small balls with an indent large enough to fit about a teaspoon of preparation in, which is then squeezed closed. One ball per preparation per pit, for 502 (yarrow), 503 (chamomile), 504 (stinging nettle), 505 (oak bark), 506 (dandelion). Preparation 507 (valerian) is diluted (around 75ml into 2L of water) and re-energized by stirring it with a stick in a bucket for 15 minutes, creating vortices in opposite directions every 30 seconds or so.

The fluffy, silky manure mix is then put into our pits, about 1 and a half bricks deep, and the top is smoothed over. We put 5 holes into the smoothed top, deep enough to place the preparation balls in. Since all of these preparation have been made in the organs of animals, it can be seen that this action is like placing the organs back into this substance to create a new living organism. We then sprinkle the pit with the valerian solution, by hand. The pits are then covered with hessian sacks that we have stuffed with straw or wool. Another little sprinkle of valerian and then they are left to do their thing for 4 weeks. At that time, we'll uncover them and turn them with a pitchfork to aerate them. After that, they'll be turned about every 2 weeks until they are ready. This helps to not only aerate the CPP but also to maintain a more even moisture level through the pit.

Once the CPP has fully matured we use it in our compost teas, seaweed sprays, cordon drenches, pasture sprays, Preparation 500 applications and compost heaps as an inoculuation of all the concentrated energies and living organisms. Spreading the love!

From Crystal to Cow-Horn

We've been continuing with the creation of our Biodynamic Preparations this week. It's time for some 501. Preparation 501 works on strengthening the above-ground activity in plants. It helps with photosynthesis and strengthens a plant's structure and cells to resist infection. Made from finely ground, treated silica quartz, it fosters silica activity in plants and helps plants to resist fungal attack.

The image below illustrates the process we used to start the creation of our very first estate-made batch of Preparation 501. Starting from the bottom left with the first small bowl and working clockwise, you can see the silica quartz crystals we started with. These were roughly crushed (bowl 2) using a mortar and pestle-type arrangement until we had a course sand (bowl 3). This was ground by hand (see Colin Ross literally at the grindstone!) between two sheets of glass ( the bowls are sitting on one) until we had a fine, almost talcum powder-like powder (bowl 4). This was mixed with water to create a paste (bowl 5) which was spooned into hollow cow horns and allowed to set (middle bowl).

Once set, the cow horns containing the quartz 'plaster' were buried (on a descending moon) where they will remain for the summer. We'll see what it looks like in 6 month's time and let you know what we do with it then.

Preparation 502

In practising biodynamics, we use a range of 8 different preparations to help balance and enrich our soils, plants and composts.

Preparations 502 - 507 are used in combination to enhance the availability of soil minerals to plants and this week we continued to prepare some 502. Comprising yarrow flowers and a stag's bladder, 502 enhances the activities of sulphur, nitrogen, potassium and trace elements. Pictured here, dried after hanging in the open for about 2 weeks, the stag's bladder is stuffed with yarrow flowers and left to hang in a tree over the summer and then buried in a clay pipe over winter. The remaining material is then incorporated into our cow-pat-pits, composts and seaweed teas.

Why a stag's bladder? Practically, the dried stag's bladder makes an excellent container and is fully natural and biodegradable - an example of traditional, self-sufficient agriculture using the full resources of the farm. It is also interesting to see the structure of the yarrow flower strongly resembles a stag's antlers.

Of Cow Horns and Vortexes

Today was the start of a descending moon and we took the opportunity to make and apply a few hundred litres of preparation 500 to the Home Vineyard.

As you'll see below, preparation 500 is a very 'earthy' substance and so the timing of application was great - coinciding with the start of a cycle when the earth 'takes an inwards breath' as the moon is in a descending phase and life-forces move downwards and inwards, into the earth.

Max Allen's website Red White & Green has a great explanation of Biodynamics (BD) and the composition and function of the various BD preparations. He describes preparation 500 as the "cornerstone of Biodynamics". To start, we used cow manure which had been buried inside a cow horn over winter and stirred this into barrels of rainwater which we warmed to body temperature. This was stirred for an hour - with office and vineyard staff all having a turn using the reverse vortex method. As Max Allen describes, this is "where the water is stirred in one direction until a vortex forms in the bucket - and then, when the vortex reaches the bottom, the stirring direction is reversed, creating chaos in the liquid. ... this works on many levels, depending on who you talk to: this is either a way of attracting cosmic influences into the liquid - or just a bloody good way of mixing stuff up."

Next, the liquid was 'flicked' out on the vineyard. Not to be confused with liquid fertiliser, this is more about "seeding the vineyards with little droplets of life" in Estate Manager Colin Ross's words, "like cultures used to

make yoghurt and yeasts fermenting grape juice". By stimulating soil bacteria and fungi, it improves soil structure and microbiological activity and helps nutrient exchange between vine roots and the soil.

This last picture shows Aman Chowfin making natural brushes

used to 'flick' the preparation out into the vineyard. >>