the burning of the clippings is to stop the transmission of infection… standard procedure
It’s strange that they don’t do this here. Maybe the composting process kills off any nasty things that could infect the vines 
This photo just taken of the PM2.5 count indicated by our air purifier/filter in a room (Malaucene, Vaucluse) where the wood stove has been burning away merrily all day. It’s on 1, which is the lowest it will go (can’t show zero for some reason). The purifier is about a metre from the stove.
The exact same air purifier in Thailand - with no heaters, wood burning or otherwise in the room, for obvious reasons! - was constantly battling on full power to bring the indoor PM2.5 count down sub-30, even with all windows and doors virtually hermetically sealed. Atmospheric pollution from burning of vegetable biomass in Thailand, from December to May, was terrible.
A properly installed stove shouldn’t cause a problem indoors - although it can smoke when adding wood. After all it’s pulling air in rapidly from the room to feed the fire and the draft up the pipe.
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Those are my findings as well and as you say opening the door too rapidly can draw smoke into the room. Worth measuring outside especially when its cold as particulates may fall.
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I used to live in a house with an open fire. When it was burning well, it sucked so much air into the room that it created huge draughts under the door. You’d warm yourself by the fire, and your back would get the cold draught. Sealing up the bottom of the door, the fire didn’t burn well. So when I chose a wood burning stove for the next house, I chose one that takes the air for combustion from the outside. This is much more efficient, as lighting the stove doesn’t create draughts, and you’re burning outside air, not already warmed inside air.
I think the stove design with external air intakes are normal now. If I was reliant on a wood burning stove, I’d definitely go for one of those. If you don’t have one, the increase in efficiency and comfort would probably be worth the expense of switching to one.
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might depend on time of year… might depend on if/how they treat the vines…
I think roses are another instance where one should be extremely careful about composting… and there are others…
As bacteria can breakdown most organic waste includung composting toilets so is it really a risk or just rumour. Obviously just leaving the cuttings lying around would be a bad idea.
Everything organic goes into my compost containers. Including the contents of our toilet. The whole lot gets hot, and the heat kills many pathogens. I put all cuttings and dead and diseased plants from the garden into the containers too. After a couple of years, it’s used as potting compost or spread on vegetable plots.
The results are excellent.
We need to find better ways of dealing with organic things than burning them. Burning is the problem - we need to minimise it!
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Similar here. We have three large (one cubic metre) compost bins, and everything apart from weeds and potatoes goes in. The compost moves from one bin along to the next once a year and once it’s spent a year in the end bin, it’s ready.
Well we’re getting diverted from the problem of wood smoke, But here’s a thing I found out a couple of years ago - most of the good plant food in compost just soaks right into the ground - noticed how a compost pile just keeps on shrinking? It’s just seeping away.
So I made some concrete bins, about a cubic metre each, initially as an effort to make them rat proof. In the bottom of each, I put a plastic pallet, and then fine mesh on top of that. Air bricks in the base of the masonry aloow air to pass right through the compost (I never turn it - too much work, and I think, counter-productive). I fill a bin, and liquid from the compost drains through a pipe into a collecting container. Turns out that liquid looks and works like baby bio. It doesn’t smell, though I assume it contains a few pathogens and I handle it carefully. If I fill a bin with weeds, it can make a couple of big trugs full of this liquid within 3-4 days.
The diluted liquid (between 1:5 to 1:20) works wonders on the plants, and I have had the best results for trees, shrubs and veg ever. It’s so great, I’m adjusting my irrigation system so the liquid is added as fertigation.
In winter, plants aren’t growing and don’t need the food, so I soak sawdust with it, and spread the sawdust around bushes and shrubs. Greatly increases the number of worms and improves the soil structure.
I have this system in the UK, and it is one of the first things I’ll build on the project in France, even before the house.
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If I didn’t put weeds in I wouldn’t have a compost heap. 
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with some weeds it’s best to let them die… before adding to a compost heap…
And some just go to the déchetterie. I’ve been trying to get rid of couch grass from my front garden for a few years now. Can’t compost that as though it may appear dead, it can resurrect itself quite nicely. When I first dug up a large area to remove it, I dug up enough to fill 2 of those 0.8m3 brico depot sacks they use to deliver bulk gravel. Since then I’ve probably filled another couple. Fortunately, it doesn’t root very deeply and so isn’t to difficult to manually remove, you just have to be thorough.
Yes and they will be able to view the crop failures as they fly over on their cheap flights.
An interesting article on the effects of air pollution and *possible * links to neurodengenerative disease
Not everyone has a wood burner but a huge percentage eat sugar and that is linked to a much higher proportion of ilnesses including the ones mentioned but too many vested interests to do anything about that.
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We bought a diesel car on government advice in 2008 - around the same time that climate criminal Monbiot was buying his woodburners - the vested interests include governments as well as private companies and, without making a study of the evidence yourself, it’s impossible to know what is best.
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When I lived in the Beaujolais, the same practices were used, one of the reasons being that it prevented the spread of parasitic plant infections, such as leaf/stem mosaic virus, etc.
We still see the occasional cut vegetation fires here in the distance down on the plain from time to time, generally in the winter (Auvergne).
I have an old wood burning stove, with a long drawing exit pipe. This Deville is cleaned regularly and the plates are removed and cleaned regularly also. I ensure that it is kept burning throughout the winter as this is my means of cooking in the stove next to the 33cm firebox and it also dries my washing. I ensure that there are draughts so that the opening of the fire box door is not likely to cause a back draught into the room. It is our only form of heating in the front room apart from one old efficient night storage heater which comes on during the off peak hours. We use oil filled portable radiators in the bedrooms if necessary. I would not want to be in the position of one supply for my warmth and particularly not with the rising costs.
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