Conventional, organic or biodynamic? The results of a long-term university study

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For winegrowers, choosing a cultivation method is an important strategic and, at the same time, personal decision. Whether conventional, organic or biodynamic, it carries far-reaching consequences, and is often accompanied by uncertainties and fears. After all, who can truly look into the future and predict how a particular viticultural method will affect the soil, vines and wine in the long term? The results of an 18-year field trial conducted by the University of Geisenheim have now been published, bringing greater clarity to a debate that has been ongoing for years and is often highly controversial.

March 2026
Got to article: Overcoming yield gaps in organic and biodynamic viticulture: insights from an 18-year field trial. Springer Nature. Agronomy for Sustainable Development, 12.February 2026.  








An 18-year field study conducted by the University of Geisenheim (Germany) provides rare long-term data on how integrated, organic and biodynamic viticulture actually develop. As part of the INBIODYN project, the effects of these cultivation methods on Vitis vinifera (Riesling variety) were systematically investigated and recently published. Among others, Katharina Steng, a PhD candidate, was involved in this study and recently published a post about it on LinkedIn , the contents of which I would like to refer to here. These findings are relevant to viticulture as a whole, but particularly to biodynamic winegrowers, as they paint a nuanced and, in key respects, encouraging picture of this labour- and cost-intensive form of cultivation.

The key findings:

  1. Organic (−17%) and biodynamic (−14%) systems initially showed lower yields.
  2. Around 8–10 years after conversion, the yield gap significantly narrowed.
  3. In hot and dry vintages, organic (+2.3%) and biodynamic (+9.0%) even outperformed integrated management.
  4. Grape quality remained comparable across all systems.
  5. Yeast-available nitrogen was consistently higher under organic and biodynamic management.


These results underline two central insights: agroecological systems require time to stabilize, and their performance is strongly shaped by climatic context. As heat and water stress events become more frequent, system resilience becomes increasingly relevant.Long-term trials are essential for identifying changes at the system level, but they also involve considerable effort. The fact that the Department of General and Organic Viticulture at Geisenheim University has conducted this experiment continuously for almost two decades is a great credit to the department and its scientific team.

These results are particularly relevant in the context of climate change: they provide a robust basis for demonstrating that biodynamic winegrowers are operating in a sustainable and forward-looking manner with their approach.

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