Member - Vignes en ville - Laboratoire sur l'agriculture urbaine

Vignes en ville (VV) is a startup company incubated by AU/LAB, an innovative non-profit organization doing research on urban agriculture. The research on crushed glass in viticulture is sponsored by SAQ until 2022. In 2019, VV won the Novae Award for Environmental impact project for its innovative process of incorporating crushed glass as a replacement of sand into urban soil mix. Now in its 3rd year, VV’s urban vineyards already produced grapes that were harvest last autumn in order to elaborate the first urban wine that will be launched in 2020. Research results demonstrates that the quality of grapes produced in a recycled crushed glass soil mix presents similar organoleptic qualities such as those cultivated in conventional vineyards. This confirms VV’s hypothesis that the integration of crushed glass as a replacement of sand into a soil mix is a viable alternative that does not impact the quality of the fruit while valorizing glass waste. Very recently, VV’s team made an unexpected discovery. By adding fungi (mycorrhizae) to the innovative soil mix, the crushed glass seems to be decomposed to its main components (silica and carbon), which are important nutrients and minerals for vines or vegetables' growth. Decomposed crushed glass in the soil could potentially increase its fertility. A pilot project launched in 2020 will investigate this promising path of this process for rooftop farms and vineyards, and to see how it could have an impact on carbon sequestration on urban farms.