Probiotic Approaches to Agricultural Microbiomes

In this paper we explore the nature of probiotic cultivation. Cultivation of the relations that biodynamic (BD) wine farmers establish with the microbes they materially cultivate in their vineyards for plant protection, biodiversity, and taste. We outline a suite of probiotic approaches to plant health and winemaking through which BD farmers recast vineyard microbes as biopolitical collaborators rather than scourge. We argue that these farmers’ practices evidence a post-Pasteurian shift, in which they have begun to cultivate, care for, and thus protect vineyard microbes that they now see as not only desirable but necessary. Our argument here is not that BD winegrowing is inherently either morally or technically superior to other forms of winemaking, but that the case offers insights into how to flourish with microbes and build an after-Anthropocenic agriculture.