Chafers still there, but things are improving

I still have a few chafers, but they are for the most part leaving the 1 st year and 2nd year vines alone.Overall things look good. We got about 1.3 inches of desperately needed rain this week. We got the vines in the lower right "frost" corner started retraining.

Here are some other pictures of the latest in the vineyard.

This is the 2nd year LaCrescent. I'm going to train them VSP (Vertical shoot position). This means they will have a lower cordon with the fruiting zone, and the canopy will be trained up into catch wires.


Lacrosse will have a small but decent harvest.


St. Pepin didn't pollinate very well.




Training of the St Pepin is going pretty well.



Foch looks pretty good.

Vine status

Things are looking pretty good. Karen came up on Sunday and helped me with the pruning and retraining of the foch in the "frost corner" of the vineyard. I also got up the bottom wire for the 2nd year LaCrescent ... I think I am going to train those using VSP training/trellis method.

We are getting very dry ... rain predicted for Monday ... my fingers are crossed. Disease pressure is very low. The vines look very healthy.

The high tunnel grapes are also looking very good. I plan on spending time training them next weekend.

Karen and I sprayed some of the retrained foch and all of the new plantings and 2nd year Lacrescent vines with Sevin, since the Rose chafers were still thick on some young vines especially the retrained foch.

Rose chafer damage .... spraying

I got to the vineyard and found that a few of the 2nd year Lacrescent had major damage. But it most were minor damage. The new plantings got hit harder.

Since None of these vines are in bloom, and wind was very calm (and most of the other grapes were done or very close to being done blooming) I sprayed Sevin on the 48 second year LaCrescent and the 300 new plantings.

Here is my estimate of damage.
(my criteria)
4- Defoliated
3- Severe damage (some green left)
2- moderate damage (half the leaves show some damage)
1- Light damage ( ~ 1/4 leaves show damage)
0- No damage (no visible damage or so few, that it is barely noticable)

2nd year lacrescent (48 total)

#vines Damage
2 ----4
4 ----3
15----2
15 ------1
12 ------0

3rd year Concord (23 total)

Number of vines Damage
0 ----4
0 ----3
4 ----2
10----1
9 ----0


1st year Frontenac (100 ..25 only have shoots, 4 showed no life)
Number of vines Damage
6 ----4
10----3
20----2
40----1
24----0

1st year LaCrescent (99 total - 9 showed no life)
Number of vines Damage
8 ----4
10----3
10----2
25----1
37----0

1st year Prairie Star (100 .. 100% have leaves!)
Number of vines Damage
10 ----4
10----3
10----2
10----1
60----0

Rose chafers hit harder

Just received another Insect damage report ... the population has exploded. The vines are being hit pretty hard. I will probably take a day off in the middle of the week, to spray.

Rose Chafers Return

I received a report from my scout that the Rose Chafers have returned (Friday June 8) She said that there were only a few on the Lacrescent by the park. The hay had not been cut yet, so that does not seem to be the trigger which I had thought.

Pictures from June 3rd

LaCrescent from last year

LaCrosse just about to bloom

Foch in Bloom

Foch

Planting done ... really. And foch starting to bloom

I finished up planting my last 25 Frontenac vines yesterday. They were accidentally left out of the first shipment. Already most of the vines planted two weeks ago have green leaves. The Lacrescent look to being doing the best.


We also finally got some substantial rains. While I was at the vineyard we picked up 1.1 inches. The first significant rain in over a month!

The foch are just starting to bloom. I'm about 2 weeks ahead of last year. This is good, since hopefully the bloom will be done before the Rose Chafers arrive. They showed up about June 10, last year and June 15 the year before.

My foch in my back yard in Madison have been in bloom for about a week and a half, and bloom was mostly complete by Friday June 1. These of course benefit from being in the city with its warmer temperatures and watering.



I'll post some pictures as soon as I download them from my camera.