About Greg Pennyroyal

Greg Pennyroyal is the Vineyard Manager at Wilson Creek Winery and Vineyards and Professor of Viticulture at Mt. San Jacinto College in Temecula, CA. He has 25 years of experience in a wide range of fields, including agricultural production, medicinal plant production, and genomics in traditional medicine. He is interested in bringing the benefits of traditional food, medicine and agriculture to modern society.

Lecture Summary: Viticulture and Regenerative Agriculture

Greg Pennyroyal lecture focuses on the comparison of sustainable, organic, biodynamic & regenerative agriculture. He believes that sustainable agriculture is continuously improving three factors, environmental, social, and economical factors of the business. To be sustainable, the outputs and the inputs of the system should be equal. Organic is defined as the avoidance of synthetic chemical inputs, genetic modification, eradication, and the stopped use of sewage sludge. Biodynamic is a basic concept that a farm is self-contained, an individual entity. Healthy soil protects the local environment and leads to the production of high quality crops, which in turn means better food for livestock and better food for human beings. Regenerative Agriculture has two basic theories, biological vs. chemical approach. A biological approach is that all plants evolved in a highly complex, mineral, organic, and biological matrix. These plans need biological action that chemically break up nutrients so that the plants receive it. On the flipside, the chemical approach is that if the chemical isn’t soluble in water than the plant is unable to absorb it.

Continuing on with his lecture, Pennyroyal compares industrial agriculture versus regenerative agriculture. He makes an emphasis on the great benefits of regenerative agriculture and talks about the four levels of plant health. The first one is complete photosynthesis, then complete protein synthesis, decreased lipid synthesis, lastly increased plant secondary metabolite synthesis.