Sampson Valley Vineyard - the Blog

We are now zone 5a!

2012-01-26T07:58:00.000-06:00

The USDA just released their new plant hardiness zone map. We went from 4b to 5a. Wow.

3 month time lapse of the vineyard

2011-11-09T16:44:00.000-06:00

We got out first major snow of the season at the vineyard today. I thought this would be a great opportunity to put up a time lapse from the last 3 months of vineyard block two. The animation starts around August 15, and ends today. I put in several frames from today to get the full impact of the snow.

It's a little hard to tell from the animation, but the first hard frost occurs around Oct 27.

In a few weeks I will post a season summary for Sampson Valley Vineyard.

Grape Picking Today!

2011-09-24T05:28:00.000-05:00

We are picking grapes today.

We survived a 3 week late bud break, a late frost, a very rainy June, record heat, black rot, and an early frost.

If good wine needs the grapes to suffer, this should be a good year.

On to the picking!

Some progress on ripening

2011-09-12T02:17:00.000-05:00

Lacrescent and Frontenac sees big increase in the last week. Others have more modest increases. We will be picking all varieties on Sept 24.
Foch: 18.8
St. Pepin: 14.3
Lacrosse: 13.2
LaCrescent vb1: 19.5
Frontenac: 23.2
LaCrescent vb3: 22.4
Prairie Star: 19.3

Latest Brix readings

2011-09-05T23:40:00.000-05:00

Readings for grapes sampled at 7:00 pm on 9/5/2011

Prairie Star - 18.3
La crescent vineyard block 3 - 20.6
La Crescent vineyard block 1 - 17.6
Frontenac - 20.9
Foch - 17.8
St Pepin - 13.4
Lacrosse - 11.5

Brix onn Aug 31, 2011

2011-08-31T23:43:00.000-05:00

First brix measurements of the year!(Aug 31, 2011)

Frontenac: 20.6

La Crescent vineyard block 3: 20.0

Prairie Star: 17.7

La Crescent Vineyard block 1: 17.7

Foch: 16.7

La Crosse: 10.7

St. Pepin: 12.8

Nets are going on!

2011-08-22T07:22:00.000-05:00

I started putting nets on this weekend. In the past I only netted the red wine grapes. This year I am netting everything that has fruit.

There are a lot of turkeys in the area, and the low hanging lacrescent would be too tempting to them. Also I did see some bird damage on the St Pepin and Lacrosse last year, so the netting should offer some protection. I hope to have everything netted by the end of the week.

Veraison has begun

2011-08-11T23:42:00.002-05:00

It's about a week later than I expected compared to other growers around the state, but veraison has begun. First clear signs were yesterday, but things are really moving fast now. Frontenac is the furthest along. Foch has color only on a few clusters. Luckily the hot summer has speed ripening to be close to normal. Harvest is now looking like the second or third weekend in September if the weather cooperates.

WTP? What the? .... Phylloxera

2011-08-03T22:38:00.001-05:00

Phylloxera has appeared on the vines at the vineyard. I've seen it in the past on the wild grape vines on the property, but this is the first time I've seen it on the cultivated varieties. I saw 3 lacrosse vines with it and one marquette. None so far on the frontenac. Frontenac is the vine typically affected most severely in the midwest.

New Weather Station

2011-07-30T23:08:00.002-05:00

A new weather station has been installed at the vineyard. No more relying on near by observations. The information is streaming to the Weather Underground using wview software. You can see the obs updating once a minute here

http://www.wunderground.com/weatherstation/WXDailyHistory.asp?ID=KWISAMPS2

The Weather station is an Ambient Weather WS-2080. It's far from top of the line, but will serve its purpose. I have it in a temporary spot right now, but I will move it to it's permanent location in the spring.

I got to test out the precipitation gauge this afternoon. It read a bit low compared to a nearby rain guage. This may be due to the strong winds during the storm. I will try to correct this issue when the station is moved to its final location.

Black Rot. Yes, it is as bad as it sounds

2011-07-29T19:06:00.002-05:00

Black rot on Marquette grapes

For the first time, I am seeing significant black rot in the vineyard. The infection was seen on the leaves as early as June 20, but the grapes showed the tell tale signs on July 18. In about a 48 hour period the fruit went from looking like a huge beautiful crop to shriveled black raisins.

I primarily see the problem on just the marquette and frontenac. Most of the others have just a tiny bit. I estimate the crop loss on the marquette to be greater than 90%, the frontenac loss is about 70-80%. All other varieties have less than 5% loss.

The heavy June rains at the vineyard coupled with the poor drying conditions throughout the entire month probably facilitated the severe infection.

A couple of interesting notes..... the Marquette were the hardest hit. When I look at the disease susceptibility in the Midwest Spray guide, it says slightly (the lowest rating). I see little or no black rot on the lacrescent and lacrosse, which are classified as moderate and very susceptible respectively.

The Marquette are probably located in the part of the vineyard with the best air flow.... however.... the rows are only spaced 8 feet apart (probably a bad choice for many reasons) All other rows in the vineyard are spaced 10 feet apart, including the frontenac. I'm not convinced row spacing is a huge factor here though. At the most likely time of infection, the shoots were pretty small, and the closeness of the rows did not inhibit airflow significantly.

I have also learned from a couple of other growers that they too have seen significant black rot issues this year on marquette. This leads me to believe that marquette may be significantly more susceptible to black rot than has been published.

So how do I avoid this from happening again ..... follow the the recommended spray schedule! My spray program was much more intensive this year than in the past, but I missed the pre-bloom spray. This was probably the biggest reason for my infection. In general I use organic sprays in the vineyard when possible, but black rot is a different animal than powdery mildew and downy mildew.

This reminds me of the phrase "faster, better, cheaper, choose two. In this case, Organic, high quality, consistent crop load... choose two.

Building shell is complete

2011-07-06T19:50:00.001-05:00

Training vines

2011-07-04T16:30:00.000-05:00

Vineyard building's roof is on

2011-06-25T22:56:00.001-05:00

The vineyard building's roof is on.

Vineyard Building is going up !!

2011-06-25T07:21:00.001-05:00

The new vineyard building is going up. The main structure should be complete next week. Initially it will be used for holding vineyard related equipment. Hopefully by the end of the summer I will have a chiller room complete to hold grapes for several hours during picking until they can be delivered or picked up by the customer.

5 inches of rain in 5 days

2011-06-25T07:08:00.001-05:00

Grapes are in bloom!

We received 5 inches of rain from June 19-June 23. I am seeing a lot of signs of black rot infections starting. I sprayed about a week ago, and will hit the vines again in the next several days.

26F on May 27, little damage seen?

2011-05-28T07:53:00.004-05:00

Marquette frost damage

We got to 26 F in the vineyard Friday morning. I am a little skeptical about the proper functioning of the thermometer. Damage looked pretty limited. Frontenac was hit the hardest. I would estimate 10-15% bud damage. Marquette was next at 10%, lacrescent was 5-10%.

Most of the other cultivars (st pepin, lacrosse, foch) showed very little damage. Shoots are only 1 to 2 inches right now.

What's going on at Sampson Valley Vineyard???

2011-05-24T21:26:00.003-05:00

I haven't posted much lately, but I hope to start posting more this summer. There is actually a lot going on at the vineyard. I have a couple of big projects going on. I'll post more on those as they materialize. But right now, I do have a few of updates.

-Pruning.
Pruning the vineyard took about a week and a half spread out over 1.5 months. We had an 18 inch snow storm after the first pruning round in early April. And another snow storm in late April before we finished pruning. Bud survival over the winter looks very good.

-The high tunnel experiment.

We had a major set back over the last year. Last year a spring wind storm caused major damage. I was not able to repair the damage before winter, so the vinifera vines in the high tunnel were a total loss over the winter. Since I had very promising results, I hope to make repairs next spring and replant soon after.

-The spring weather.
We have had a cool wet spring. This is probably a good thing. Bud break was delayed about 10 days beyond normal. I usually see bud break between May 1 and May 10. This year bud break occurred around May 21. Hopefully that is late enough to avoid any late frosts.

Look for more posts in mid to late June. Perhaps a few before then if I find the time.

- Harvest projections.
I should be at about 80% of a full crop this year. The youngest vines ( marquette) are in their 4th growing year. Most of the vines are a bit behind due to the 3 year drought (2007-2009). Of course this means a big picking party this fall!

-Jerrold

Bud break on May 21

2011-05-21T21:20:00.000-05:00

We have had bud break on several varieties in the vineyard on May 21.

LaCrescent, Foch, marquette, and frontenac have all broken bud. Prairie star is close, and st Pepin will be a few days later.

Frontenac bud break

LaCrescent bud break

More Harvest numbers from Sept. 11, 2010

2010-09-11T23:39:00.001-05:00

We harvested Prairie star, Marquette, frontenac, and the remaining LaCrescent Here are the harvest numbers:

Prairie Star 19.2
LaCrescent 20.5
The Prairie Star and LaCrescent were blended, so I only did a ph and TA on the blend which was
ph 3.30 ta* 11 g/L

Marquette 24.2 ph 3.18 ta* 12.5g/L
Frontenac 23.2 ph 3.16 ta 14 g/L

*The TAs may be a bit off, since my Sodium Hydroxide was old.

The prairie star and lacrescent, would have had much higher sugars, but almost half of the prairie star and lacrescent were eaten by birds, and they chose the ripest bunches.

Foch and some LaCrescent harvested

2010-09-05T23:07:00.001-05:00

One of the wineries that uses my grapes in their wines, picked the Foch and LaCrescent Sunday (9/5).

The weather was gorgeous. Sunny & dry in the low 70s. Perfect picking conditions.

The Foch was in excellent condition. The lacrescent was not quite as good, but the downy mildew hit those harder. Overall I'm happy with the quality. Next Weekend, more lacrescent, Marquette, Frontenac, and prairie star scheduled to be picked.

Jack helped too.

Today's (Sept 2) Brix report

2010-09-02T22:35:00.002-05:00

Only 4 varieties were checked:

LaCrescent 20.8

Foch 20.2

LaCrosse 16.3

St. Pepin 19.7

We will be picking foch and La Crescent this Sunday. (already sold)

Some varieties ripening quickly (Aug 29 Brix)

2010-08-30T09:11:00.003-05:00

I was out in the vineyard yesterday, and collected some berry samples to test sugars.

Marquette and lacrescent are looking good. By taste, I think the acids are in the right range.

Only Lacrosse seems to be strugling to get sugars up .... maybe over-cropped?

Marquette. 24.0
Prairie star. 18.6
Lacrosse. 14.5
Lacrescent park. 20.3
Lacrescent vineyard 3. 23.3
Foch. 18.8
Frontenac 23.5
St pepin. 19.4

Latest brix numbers from August 22

2010-08-22T21:23:00.003-05:00

From this afternoon:

St Pepin - 16.3

La Crosse - 11.9

La Crescent (5th year vines) - 18.9

La Crescent (4th year vines) - 20.1

Foch - 17.4

Prairie Star - 16.6

Frontenac- 21.5

Marquette - 21.0

Looks like a few varieties may be ready labor day weekend.

Veraison has begun .... in July!

2010-08-02T16:42:00.002-05:00

Veraison started July 30-31 in Marquette and Frontenac. A couple of weeks ahead of schedule. Foch are not quite there yet. Looks like an early harvest ... probably the end of August or very early September.

Note: I will not have sufficient quantities this year for commercial wineries, but any home wine makers should be able to find plenty of nice grapes this year. All varieties of hybrids (lacrescent, lacrosse, st pepin) available at $0.75/lb (in any quantity.) I also have some very limited quantities of prairie star, foch, marquette, and frontenac.

If you're interested in buying pick-your-own wine grapes email info@sampsonvalley.com or call 331-grapes1 (331-472-7371) to schedule a picking.

New Grape picker

2010-07-13T12:52:00.002-05:00

Jack and Alexandra

We got a new grape picker on Friday. No, not a mechanized one, but the kind that eats as many as she picks. My new little girl is named Alexandra, and I'm sure she will be helping out in the vineyard in no time.

P.S. I haven't been updating the blog much this year, but this doesn't mean I've stopped working in the vineyard. I've just been way too busy this year to update the blog with the latest news. I hope to find the time for more updates in the coming weeks and months. I mean how hard can having to children under 16 months be? I should have lots of time.....

Vinifera in Wisconsin? Yes We Can! almost .....

2009-10-19T16:57:00.004-05:00

Karen and Jack picking the Cabernet Franc.

Saturday October 17 we picked the vinifera grapes in the high tunnel. We picked at sugar levels much lower than ideal. We had a very hard freeze the weekend before (20F,) and the high tunnel got to 29 F, so ripening had pretty much stopped.

The vines were hit pretty hard with powdery mildew this year, due to some poor vineyard management by yours truly. The ripening on the cab sauvignon, cab franc and merlot was just creeping along over the last month and a half. Only the chardonnay escaped the full brunt of the powdery mildew. The Cab franc and Cab Sauv were very under ripe. (not quite 16 brix) Merlot made it too almost 19 brix, and chardonnay did best of all, getting to 21.2 brix before the freeze.

I will definitely have to be more aggressive with my spray program next year. I think that in a normal year, with better viticulture practices, I should be able to reach the low 20's in brix.

20F on Oct 11. Hard Freeze

2009-10-12T21:56:00.002-05:00

The vineyard got down to 20 F on Oct. 11. Needless to say we got our hard freeze. Despite my best attempts to keep the high tunnel from freezing we got down to 29F the same night in the high tunnel. I plan to harvest those grapes this weekend.

Foch and lacrescent picked

2009-09-21T08:52:00.006-05:00

early start

I picked Foch and Lacrescent on Sunday. Unfortunately, I never got a chance to measure the final brix on the foch. The Lacrescent was at 23.3 brix. I hope to measure the ph and TA tonight.

I also checked the lacrosse and st pepin.
st pepin was 18.8
lacrosse was 16.2

Brix numbers .... ripening before frost will be close

2009-09-16T22:20:00.003-05:00

I took berry samples from all of the grape varieties in the vineyard. Here are the sugar numbers Measure 9/15/09 ( I haven't measured acids yet)

Foch 17.3
LaCrescent 21.8
St Pepin 17.6
Lacrosse 15.1
Seedless Concord 16.1

*Marquette 21.1
*Frontenac 22.3
*Prairie Star 18.9

Chardonnay 16.8
Merlot 15.3
Cab Franc 14.1
Cab sauv 12.5

(*only a few pounds each of these)

Veraison finally happening

2009-08-28T20:41:00.005-05:00

St Pepin at Sampson Valley Vineyard Aug 28, 2009

Wow things are late this year!! I think we are about 3 weeks behind 2007. Foch is about 80% through veraison. Vinifera is just starting (merlot, cab franc, and cab sauv)

The first grapes ready will probably be La Crescent. Based on taste alone, I think those will be ready in about 2 weeks. The rest are at least 3 -5 weeks away.

Looks like I will have a nice harvest of St Pepin, and LaCrosse. LaCrescent will be not as much as I thought due to rose chafers eating the blossoms during bloom. In general those three white varieties look like they will be good quality grapes. I still have a few hundred pounds available for sale that aren't already spoken for.

Unripe Foch, from crop thinning in mid August.

I will have a small foch harvest, but last year, this year, and next year look to be a rebuilding years. I already picked about 70 lbs of green foch grapes prior to verasion a couple of weeks ago. I didn't want to over stress some of the vines.

This year the vinifera experiment in the high tunnel will go a long way of telling me if it is feasible to grow grapes this way. Right now harvest looks like it will be Early October.

3rd year in a row with very dry conditions

2009-07-10T16:48:00.003-05:00

We haven't had any measurable rain since early June. Luckily we got about 3 inches of a nice slow rain at that time to give the vines a good start.

One benefit of the dry weather, has been very little disease pressure. Even the humidity has been low, so powdery mildew hasn't been much of a problem either. As of July 5, I finished putting my irrigation system is in place. So I should survive lack of rain much better than in the last two years. However, I think the farmers in the area sure could use an inch or two of rain right now though.

Video update coming

2009-07-09T18:01:00.003-05:00

It has been very busy in the vineyard this year. I haven't kept up very well with the blogging. I will post a video update shortly. In the mean time check out the 2009 grape prices. For the first time I will have Vitis Vinifera grapes available!!!

2009-05-25T22:11:00.002-05:00

2009-05-25T22:03:00.002-05:00

Jack and the Grapevine

2009-03-24T20:03:00.002-05:00

Karen Jack and Jerry

And so, another vineyard season begins. We had a few days of good weather last weekend, so I was able to get a start on the pruning. I only got a few rows done, so I'll be back pruning again in the next few weeks.

Things looked good so far. As expected, I didn't see an serious bud damage on the LaCrescent. There was a bit of damage on the LaCrosse, but not as much as I thought I would see. LaCrosse is more tender than LaCrescent.

I was lucky enough to be joined in the vineyard by wife, Karen, and our 3 week old son Jack Ford. Jack was named after his grandfather Jack and his great grandmother . (Ford was her maiden name)

No big warmups expected for a few weeks, so I should have time to get the pruning done.

2009 Goals

2009-01-19T12:49:00.002-06:00

Once again I am putting my goals down in writing. It will be a challenge to accomplish these. Last year I had several misses on my goals. I'm sure getting married, moving out of my house, selling my house, and preparing for a baby all contributed.

This year has a lot of distractions too. Our first baby is due in February, and we are in the process of looking for a house. But how much work can a new baby be? :)

Here are my Goals for 2009.

-Pull out Landot Noir. I only had 24 vines, but they could not hack the weather here. They should have been hardy enough, but they just kept dieing back. I think I'm yanking those.

-Replace Landot noir with St Pepin. The St Pepin have shown to be disease resistant, and very hardy. The demand for st pepin seems to be good. They seem good candidates to replace the landot. The draw back is that they are pistilate, and need other grape vines for polination. They will be right by the lacrosse, so hopefully that will not be an issue.

-Pull some of the foch from the low areas. One spot in vineyard one (aka the park vineyard) has had frost issues. St pepin has been reliably the last to vines to break bud in my vineyard, so I plan to replace about 50 vines with st pepin, and maybe a few Front gris.

-Put in the IRRIGATION. This will happen this year. Two drought years in a row has convinced me. Even if I don't see a drought again for several years. I will be able to use the water for frost prevention.

-Continue using the rose chafer trapping, and suppliment with Surround (kaolin clay). The rose chafer traps were effective last year. But the rose chafers continue to be a problem. I plan to use the traps again this year, but I will also use surround wich is organic.

-Aquire a pull behind Sprayer. Ideally I would get an air blast sprayer, but the size of the vineyard would not justify the expense.

-Begin a foliar feeding program. I read that it is debatable how effective this is, but I will experiment with it this year.

Yield Goals
I'm going to be very conservative here, since many of the vines are recovering from the previous year droughts.

- -Experimental vinifera .... 250lbs.
- park vineyard st pepin, lacrosse, lacrescent. 500 lbs
-total yields about 800 lbs. I think 2010 will be the year my yields return to more reasonable numbers i.e. 2000lbs+

Goals for 2008 the hits and misses

2009-01-19T12:32:00.002-06:00

14 months ago I layed down my goals for 2008. I had a few hits, but also had some misses. I like to hold myself accountable, so here is the low down ....

2008 goals status

-Plant 200 Marquette vines.
status: done. All 200 planted and doing well

-Have a Well drilled in between vineyard 1 and 3 for irrigation and frost mitigation
status: not done. I wish I would have had this done, but most of the funds I had allocated to this were used to help fix up my house for selling it, and went toward the wedding expenses.
This will be on the list for next year, but at a higher priority level.

-put in a trellis with steel endposts in Vineyard 3
status: Partial. Steel prices got too high, and I ended up using treated end posts. I would have really like to use steel, but it just wasn't economical this time. I will definitely consider these in the future.

-Increase foch yield from 900 lbs to 1500 lbs
status: Major FAIL. Due to the drought, overcropping in 2007, and severity of the winter in 2007-2008, the foch were set back a couple of years.

-Maintain or slightly increase LaCrosse and St Pepin yield ( about 600 lbs - 900 lbs)
status: Minor miss. Yields were down, but I did get harvest.

-get first harvest from experimental vineyard ~100 lbs.
status: Minor miss, I dropped most of the fruit, but still got about 20-30 lbs off the vines.

-start a foliar feeding program
status: miss. No excuses, other than my priorities for resources changed.

-buy new pull behind sprayer
status: miss. I used the ATV sprayer that I already had. Again it was a question of the best application of my resources I had.

-finish trellis in high tunnel
status: done. VSP.

Late Fall and winter High tunnel update

2009-01-18T23:24:00.004-06:00

The vines did very well in the high tunnel this summer. I did have some powdery mildew and downy mildew issues, but this was probably due to the fact that the cover was not in place for most of the summer due to early summer wind damage. Luckily the vinifera varieties in the high tunnel are not sulfur sensitive, and a organic bordeaux spray should take care of it in the next season.

In another mini-experiment, it was showed that you can not simultaneously grow grapes and tomatoes in the same high tunnel. One of the more traditional high tunnel crops are tomatoes. it became obvious why after my brother decided to plant a half dozen tomato plants among my grape vines. The tomatoes did well... very well. Each plant grew to be almost 10 feet in diameter. It got to the point where you could not walk down the row without stepping on a tomato.

A hard frost occurred a few weeks later in the high tunnel as expected. This was the first year that the cover was in place before first frost. The two pictures above were taken in late October. For the entire summer the sides were rolled up. They were lowered starting in October.

Snow came early in often. We had a few inches of snow in November, but then got a deep blanket in December. By mid December, we had several feet of snow.

By mid January we hit some of the coldest weather since I planted in the vineyard in 2003. The lowest temperature in the past week reached -22 F. This is 5 degrees colder than what I had seen in the previous 3 winters, and probably the coldest in 8 years. We went about 3 days without even getting above 0F. The good news is that the coldest it got in the high tunnel was +5F. This is well above the critical temperatures for any of the varietals that I am growing.

Catching up on the latest activiies

2009-01-18T22:58:00.004-06:00

Late October 2008

A lot of vineyard reports to catch up on. Yes, Sampson Valley Vineyard is alive and well; I've just been a little behind on my vineyard updates. I'll have several posts catching things up. Here is the run down on the remainder of the season....

The season ended pretty dry. This was the second year in a row of drought conditions in the vineyard. If the vines had been more mature and healthy, the lack of rain would not have been that big of a deal. Unfortunately, the new plantings from 2007 are still way behind where they should be. The 2008 marquette plantings did well due to the early season rains. The overcropped foch did not recover as quickly as I would have hoped. They are still a couple of years from returning to full production.

The season ended with a hard frost in mid October. Total production this year came from LaCrescent, LaCrosse, and St Pepin. And that was significantly down from 2007.

Mistakes Part 3

2008-08-19T21:04:00.002-05:00

I bet you thought I'd run out of vineyard mistakes I made. Nope ... lots more to come.

Let's see where was I ....

Mistake #9
Not using grow tubes appropriately.
I've read several methods for using grow tubes. Some people swear by them others say they are a waste of time. I've seen research that shows that vines that have them grow faster, but things are about the same between vines with out tubes after about 3 years. Some growers remove them mid summer others keep them on all winter long. My experience has been it depends. When I kept them on some of the foch through out the summer and into the fall, most of those needed retraining. But some of the vines with out grow tubes had rodent damage. Frontenac vines that had them on over the winter suffered no ill effects. So here is the policy that I decided to follow. Any vines rated to be just barely hardy enough for your location, remove the tubes by mid to late July. If a vine is very hardy for your location, leave the tube on until it is trained to complete cordons. The main advantage I have found with grow tubes, is that it makes early training easier, herbicide application easier, offers protection from rodents over the winter. So would I use tubes again, but I would also be careful about using them on less hardy vines. I reserve the right to refine my position on this.

Mistake #10
Improper Stone size for mulch
I decided early on to use stone for vine much to control weeds. The first year I used weed fabric, and stones that were already in the gravel pit next to the vineyard. That was very inadequate. The next year I had washed gravel. This worked much better, and was a lot of work to put on the vines. But the gravel was too small in size, and weed seeds were still able to germinate in it. I have not put stone under the newest vines, since I have not had time to spread it. I do think the gravel was useful. Weeds under the stone mulched vines is much less than the unmultched vines. So I would use stone again, but I would use a much larger stone, at least an inch in diameter.

Mistake #11
Using high Cordon instead of VSP.
Most of my first vines I trained to a single high cordon. I have not noticed a signicant difference in the amount of work training VSP versus single high cordon. But I do see that VSP is easier to prune, easier to harvest from, and although I can't personally verify this, VSP produces lower acid grapes. My site is note overly vigorous, so VSP may work better for me than other sites. All of my grape planted the last two years are being trained VSP.

Mistake #12
Poor choice of Earth anchor for end posts.
There is a tool that can be attached to a tractor PTO to drive in the long helix earth anchors. If I had a tractor with a PTO shaft, I would have used those, but I do not. So I got the shorter helix anchors. Even the short anchors took me over a half hour each to put in. And many of those than pulled out. I finally found an anchor that can be used in stoney ground, and can be driven in with a hammer. It is called a fenox ground anchor. Much easier to put in than the helix anchors and non have pulled out so far. http://www.spectrellising.com/anchors/index.php

Upcoming mistakes subjects .....spraying mistakes, poor equipment choices, variety choices .... oh I have lots more ....

A dry month

2008-08-18T06:14:00.001-05:00

The last 30 days of precipitaion (SVV pointed to by the black arrow.)

We are very dry again in the vineyard this summer. Fortunately, unlike last year, we did get a lot of early season rain in April, May and June. But we have been very dry since then. No significant rain in over a month. I will definitely have irrigation in place before next year. The image above is from NOAA's experimental precip page. http://water.weather.gov/

It shows the last 30 days at the vineyard, we have received about .25-.5 " of rain ... honestly I think that estimate is way too high. (the black arrow points to Sampson Valley Vineyard.) It's hard to tell because the arrow is too thick, but it is pointing to the light blue in Oconto County.

Veraison is spotty. The few clusters of foch I have hanging this year is about halfway, but the seedless concord have no color. I think things will start moving fast now.

No signs of Veraison

2008-08-10T22:25:00.000-05:00

Things are a bit behind this year (maybe a week or two.) As of August 10, there are no real sign of veraison so far. While not critical, we have been pretty dry lately. We could use a little rain. It won't do much good if it comes a week from now, but we could certainly use a bit now.

The high tunnel grapes are doing very well. Here is a photo from above:

Next year I hope to have a full crop. We'll see how things do over the winter.

Mistakes part 2

2008-08-07T20:55:00.003-05:00

Okay now I'm up to vineyard mistake number 4. By the way I don't know how many of these I have. (or will have :)

Mistake 4. No soil test before planting.

Do a soil test the year before planting, and amend soil as needed. I did do a soil test in the second year. And discovered a significant potassium deficiency in the soils in Sampson. The first years of a vine's growth they really need to be babied. If the soil doesn't have right nutrients you will not see the growth needed in its first years of growth, and it will just take longer before you will be able to harvest a full crop.

Mistake 5. Planting too late in the spring.

Plant about 2 weeks before the average last frost. Okay this one may be debatable and only applies to root stock, not green house started plants. I've planted vines in 6 different years. In all years but one, I planted between May 10 and May 22. Typically last frost in the vineyard is around May 10. This year I planted near the end of April. This year's new plantings have done better than any other new plantings. I realize that one year is not a very large sample, but it will definetly be the philosophy I use in the future.

Mistake 6. No irrigation.

USE IRRIGATION!!!! This one has proven itself many times. I'm not saying you can't start a vineyard without irrigation, but there are huge advantages. here are a few:
-You will have a full crop sooner. I had a few vines that I was able to irrigate from when they were planted. The vine mass was several times that of unirrigated vines.
-avoid problems from drought. If I had irrigation last year, I would have been able to ripen my crop earlier, and they would have been higher quality. The vines would have also had time to harden off before winter, and I would not have lost the entire foch harvest for this year.
-you will have a method to avoid late spring frost, and early fall frosts. By using a sprinkler on nights that are predicted to get near 32F the latent heat of fusion from when ice freezes, can keep your vines shoots alive. It's will only buy you a few degrees, but that may be all you need.

Mistake 7. No deer protection.

Deer love young grape vines. Deer can eat back 3 months growth on new vines in an evening. When I eventually put in a solar electric fence, the deer left the vines alone.

Mistake 8. Underestimating the damage that Rose Chafers can do.

I tried to ignore the problem, then I tried some organic control methods. Finally I hit them with Sevin. After 6 years, I think I am finally starting to get a handle on this problem. I think the traps definitely helped this year, but future years are where I really hope to see their benefit. Next year I'm going t use the traps again, but I will also try Surround. Surround is the brand name for Kaolin Clay. Hopefully I can control the rose chafers entirely through organic means. If the Surround does not work, I will hit them with Sevin ... at least those vines not blossoming.

Wow .... I have so many more mistakes to list, but it's late .... I will probably continue this over the weekend or maybe next week.

Mistakes ... I made a few

2008-08-07T00:37:00.005-05:00

This post is dedicated to putting down some of the mistakes I've made starting a vineyard .... okay the title says I made a few. That's not accurate. I made a lot!!! But I also learned a lot. And I'm still making them. But I hope others can learn from the mistakes I've made.

So here goes ... in no particular order, but I am numbering them.

Mistake #1 Not well thought out site selection.

Okay every book, every powerpoint I've seen, every article I read, all say the same thing; one of the most important decisions when starting a vineyard is SITE SELECTION. In general, I did pretty well, but I definitely would have done some things different. I have a major frost pocket in the south east corner of my oldest vines. I had thought there was a place for the cold air to drain, but I was just not careful enough.

I also planted on a fairly steep hill side. This in general is good, but for a first time vineyard, it would have been a lot easier on a flatter area.

Mistake #2 Improper root trimming when planting

Do not trim roots on new vines that are about to be planted. Maybe this seems obvious to some of you. It seemed obvious to me. But early in my vineyard I went to a talk by a very knowledgable person who had many years growing grapes in this climate. He demonstrated that new vine roots should be severely prunned. I recall that demo very well. This was just before my first and second year of planting vines. I carefully headed that advise. In nearly every case, the severely prunned roots on new vines produced poorer growth. One year I evendid a more controlled experiment. In that year I pruned some roots severely, and some not. Almost with out exception the vines with more roots did better the first years, and in the second years too.

Mistake #3 Too small and shallow holes for new vines.

Dig very deep large holes for the vines. Again maybe this is obvious. But in the same demo the person said that they don't even dig a hole. They just use a T-shaped bar and make a small hole maybe only a foot deep at the most. Again I experimented. Again I got far superior growth and vine survival. with very large deep holes versus the small holes. In fact this year I used a post hole digger like I did in 2003. Growth this year easily surpassed any other year for first year vines.

Okay, I've only listed 3 mistakes so far.... I have a lots more. I will continue to roll these out over the next few days and weeks. I hope anyone that reads these learns from my mistakes, and does some of their own research on how to avoid them.

Catching up

2008-08-06T22:41:00.008-05:00

Catching upSt Pepin July 20, 2008

It's been a busy summer. But who isn't busy these days. I'm going to try to catch up on the last two months in this blog.

Starting in June.
We've had a good spring. It started out cool, but we got a lot of rain. The perfect prescription for recovering from last year's drought. We also had several windy days. Unfortunately some gusty days just after Memorial day did a number on the high tunnel cover.

High tunnel Memorial day weekend.

High tunnel on June 7, after the winds a day earlier.

Growth in the high tunnel June29

June 14, 2008 the Rose Chafers return!!! I knew they were coming. And sure enough right on schedule they were back. I wasn't sure if the cool wet spring and the long winter would slow them, but they were pretty much right on schedule. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I put out chafer traps this year with the hopes of avoiding some of the damage.

Rose Chafer traps stand gaurd over the vineyard.

The traps did not seem to be too effective initially. Some of last years plantings, and the new marquette plantings were taking on some damage. I decided to spray those vines with Sevin since they had no blossoms. I try to avoid using Sevin or any non organic pesticides, but the vines are nearly completely consumed with out strong intervention. Sevin is very toxic to bees, and should not be used on vines in blossom so as not to kill bees.

The 3rd year LaCrescent vines were also being attacked. These vines did have blossoms, so I did not spray them. Some of the vines sustained severe damage. About 10-20% of the 3rd year vines were significantly set back due to the Chafers.

Eventually the traps did seem to make a dent in the chafer population. Overall, the damage to unsprayed vines was less than in previous years.

By the end of June the traps had trapped a significant number of chafers. In previous years, the chafers were crawling all over the milkweed by the end of June. This year, the milkweeds near the vineyard had almost no chafers on them.

Trap with thousands of chafers on June 29

LaCrescent Vine at the end of June (trained VSP)

I also spent a few days puting in 50 end posts for the trellis in the new vineyard. All vines in this vineyard will be trained VSP.

Endpost installed on June 29

We had good rain in the beginning of July, but intermitantly had a few dry periods too, overall moisture was adquate.

July 12, 2008Old Vineyard July 12

The new vineyard is coming along well. I started putting up trellis wire at line posts in July. Most of last years vines were emerging well from their growtubes. They were definitely behind where vines had been in the past at this stage, but at least they are recovering.

Last years plantings (Frontenac, LaCrescent, and Prairie Star)

Of the vines planted last year, the frontenac seems to be doing best. The best overall survival from last year was the Prairie Star, the lacrescent had the worst survival, but of the vines that did survive, they seem to be growing faster than the Prairie Star.Frontenac planted last year (picture from July 12 this year)

This year's Marquette has been most impressive. Only one or maybe 2 vines appear DOA, most of the rest have matched or exceed the growth of last years plantings of Frontenac, LaCrescent, and Prairie Star.

Marquette on July 12

The LaCrescent in their 3rd year have definitely suffered from the Rose Chafer attacks in June. The bugs were out while they were in blossom, and the few clusters on the vines definitely appear to be quite sparse. Many of the leaves on the larger vines show the effect of them also.LaCrescent on July 12

As I mentioned in earlier posts my Foch had a rough winter. Fortunately, I don't think I completely lost any vines. Unfortunately, most needed to be retrained. They are coming back fast, but it would be nice to get a full crop off all of the vines. Retrained Foch July 20

By July 20, many of the marquette were already well over 3 feet tall. Some approaching 4. I am rushing to get the trellis up in hopes that I will be able to get some trained in the first year. In most cases I would cut them back to 1 or 2 buds in the second year anyway, but I may keep a few trained on to the trellis if they have adequate growth.Marquette on July 20

Marquette on July 20

Retraining Foch on July 20

LaCrescent on July 20

Posts for July

2008-07-31T13:04:00.001-05:00

I did have activities in July, but did not post until August. Jump to August 6 blog entry to read about July activities. (predated for ease of searching)

Chafers arrive June 14

2008-06-14T12:34:00.000-05:00

Just a note that the first sign of Chafers in the Vineyard occurred on June 14 (posted after the fact and predated for ease in finding it.)

The 2007 drought aftermath. Many lessons learned.

2008-06-03T16:58:00.008-05:00

3rd Year Lacrescent (Memorial day Weekend)

May 2008 has been a tough month in the vineyard. If you have read my blog postings from late last year, you know about the drought Sampson Valley Vineyard went through last summer. It may have been one of the worst droughts in many years. We did get the occasional shower, but nothing substantial. By the end of the summer, even though I had watered them several times, I had already lost about 10-20% of the newly planted vines, and my over cropped foch was struggling to ripen their fruit. We also had a few light early frosts that hit the foch especially hard. Even the non bearing vines. So it was really not a big surprise when this winter I suffered a very bad winter kill in the foch. Nearly all of my mature vines had severe winter damage. A large percentage of my vines that would have produced their first crop this year also had severe damage. On top of it all... we had a late frost in the middle of last week, that killed off the new shoots at the bases of the foch. I should know in a few weeks, how much will have to be replanted. Right now, I will see only about 5-10% of my expected foch harvest.

So what have I learned?
1. Irrigate!!! I hope to set up irrigation for my vines this year.
2. Don't over crop. In all honesty, I did not overcrop for a normal year, but we had a dry spring and a dry summer, and the vines simply could not handle the stress.
3. Frost protection. Hopefully the irrigation can also be set up to provide some frost protection. Of course the best frost protection is site selection ... A little too late in the game for some of my vines.

I do have some good news too.

The Lacrosse and St Pepin that had small crops last year are coming along well. I expect to see about the same crop size from them this year. I should have a small crop from the 3rd year Lacrescent. That will be their first fruit.

Cabernet Sauvignon in High tunnel (Memorial Day weekend)

The grapes in the high tunnel are doing extremely well. I didn't lose a single plant over the winter. I did have some bud damage, but that may have been due to some problems with the high tunnel heat cycling in the spring ... not sure exactly.

Rose Chafer Trap

It's almost time for my friends the Rose Chafers to start attacking my vines. We have had a screwy spring, so I'm not sure when they will make their appearance.

This year I have a new plan in store them. After doing a little research, I found out that they now have a trap for them. I got mine from Great Lakes IPM http://www.greatlakesipm.com/readytousekits.html

It was heart breaking to see my foch so damaged. So for what did these poor vines expend so much energy that should have been used to harden off their wood for winter? The answer is: the first commercial wine to be produced from Sampson Valley Vineyard.

2007 Maiden Voyage Blush

Captain's Walk Winery in Green Bay just released Maiden Voyage . A blush wine made from 50% Sampson Valley Vineyard Foch, and 50% Von Stiehl Foch (At least I think that is the proportions) I got the opportunity to try some Memorial Day Weekend. I must say, the winemakers at Captain's Walk did a magnificent job. Despite having non-ideal harvest parameters, they produced a very well balance blush wine. It had a delicate strawberry nose. It was not overly fruity, but you can definitely see the youth in the grapes from which it was made.

And on a personal side note: for those who are interested ... the wedding was wonderful ... the bride was beautiful .... and the groom was a very happy man.

200 Marquette Vines are Planted!

2008-04-28T23:04:00.003-05:00

I planted 200 new Marquette vines this weekend. This brings the vineyard total to 863 vines. The Marquette vines will be the last vines planted in the vineyard for a few years. Marquette is the new (released in 2006) very highly regarded hybrid out of the University of Minnesota. Early reviews have described a more tannic and complex wine produced from Marquette. Check out http://www.grapes.umn.edu/marquette/enology.html and http://www.grapes.umn.edu/marquette/viticulture.html for more informtion about Marquette grapes.

I decided to use a large auger this year to plant, like I did in 2003 and 2004. When I use the big auger, I can dig a 9 inch diameter hole that is about 3 feet deep that penetrates the hard pan. The bigger hole allows me to keep more of the root system on the vines being planted. In 2005, 2006, and 2007, I used a smaller 3 inch auger that makes a 2 feet deep hole. None of these vines had as good growth as I did in 2003 and 2004. Of course 2005, 2006, and 2007 were fairly dry summers in the vineyard, so that may be related.

Bud Status

Vines are for the most part well behind last year's. The laCrescent seem to be the furthest along. It looks like I had excellent bud survival among the laCrescent. As of Saturday, it looks like bud break could occur in the next week with warm weather ... although it has been quite cold the last few days (snowed Saturday and today!) Tonight's low is expected to be in the mid 20s F. Luckily no vines have broken yet.

The foch have swollen buds, but are several days behind the lacrescent. Lacrosse and especially the Saint Pepin are barely beginning to swell.

The buds on the vines in the high tunnel have swollen quite a bit, and some buds near the bases of the trunks have already broken, but for the most part, they are still a week or more from bud break.

In Madison, (in my backyard) my foch has already had a few buds break, but the cold weather the last few days will keep the remaining buds from breaking until the end of the week.

Final Thoughts
My wedding is only 2 weeks away, so I won't be back in the vineyard until the end of May. My vineyard manager, will be handling early mowing and vine tying/training until then. Also, due to the late winter, windy weather when working at the vineyard, and limited time I have had to devote to vineyard activities this year, I did not spray lime sulfur. This puts me at greater risk to anthracnose, but that's the way things worked out.

Spring Prunning .... at last!!!

2008-04-08T16:02:00.013-05:00

Vineyard on April 4, 2008

Wow ... what a winter! Things are finally warming up, and I was able to get my pruning done before my vines broke dormancy. Here is a quick synopsis of the winter at Sampson Valley Vineyard.

Vineyard on February 15, 2008

From about December 1, 2007 - March 30, 2008 we had substantial snow cover with the exception of about 1 mild week in January. During much of that time, the snow was a foot deep or more. The frost depth was quite low, so that when the snow cover finally melted in the last week and a half, the ground frost was also gone.

The coldest temperature recorded in the vineyard this winter -16F. Last year(2006-2007) it was -15F, and the year before (2005-2006) it was -17F. This year we had much more time spent below zero, and more often. We did not have many warm periods, with the exception of about a week or two in January, and we never got the long warm spells like we did in the last two winters.

High Tunnel update

Tunnel on March 1, 2008

Despite several long periods of below Zero Fahrenheit temperatures, the coldest the center of the high tunnel got was +12F. And near the edges (about a 1 meter in), we got to about +7F. During sunny Days in January and February, the temperature reached the 40s and 50s.

Early March with snow collected on the sides and roof of the high tunnel

As soon as March rolled around the lows were similar to earlier in the winter, but the high temperatures started sky rocketing. On sunny days, the temperature reached over 100F!!!

At this point I decided the end flaps needed to stay open. This kept the high temperatures even on very sunny days, closer to the 70s and 80s. Still warmer than I'd like, but better than 100F! I'll need to install some automatically opening vents for next winter.

An Open flap on the high tunnel to control high temperatures

I did most of the pruning in the high tunnel on Easter weekend (March 21-23).

Pruning

My routine (non high tunnel) pruning this year was completed in 3 days ... April 2- April 4. Normally I would have had this done by the end of March, but the substantial snow cover set me back a couple of weeks.A LaCrosse vine pruned to a VSP trellis system.

In general things looked pretty good. I did not see any rabbit or other rodent damage. I had expected to see some, since I had a lot of rabbit damage in my backyard. Even along the paths to the vineyard, the boxelders and sumacs had much of there bark chewed off from about a foot off the ground to 2 feet up. However, the vineyard was pretty much untouched.

There was very little winter damage in the LaCrosse and StPepin. The Landot Noir showed a significant amount of winter damage, but no more than other years .... I really need to pulls those out, and replace them with Foch. The Foch vines that did not produce last year, looked pretty good. There was some damage to the heavily/over cropped Foch from last year. It remains to be seen how much. I did prune those pretty severely, but possibly not severe enough.

I should be able to get a small crop from the LaCrescent this year. They did not have a great year last year due to the drought. But hopefully, they can make up for lost time this year.

A 3rd year prunned LaCrescent vine.

I still don't know how many of the new plantings from last year made it. I planted 100 each of Prairie Star, LaCrescent and Frontenac. Already in the fall I know I had lost several to the drought, so it will be interesting to see how many survived the winter.

Next week I hope to start preparing for my 200 Marquette vines that I will be planting. I have been hearing very good things about Marquette. I have had the oportunity to taste a Marquette wine from New York this past winter. It did not blow me away. None the less, with such good word of mouth from others who have tried some of the Minnesota produces Marqutte wines, I thought it was definitely something to plant. These will be the last vines I plan on planting for a while (except to replace dead or unproductive vines). This will bring my vine total up to almost 900 vines or about 1.5 acres.

My todo list for the next month ...
- dormant spray lime sulfur to control anthracnose.
- till and prepare for marquette
- more trellising
- setting up drip irrigation for high tunnel
- look at putting in a well and irrigating the outside vines.

-12F and -15F ... 40 hours below zero

2008-01-21T13:09:00.000-06:00

The low Friday night reached -12 F and the low Saturday night was -15F. We did not even get above zero on Saturday ... about 40 hours straight of below zero F temperatures. We do have a good snow cover, which helps some. I am concerned about my stressed Foch vines. Normally they would survive -15F weather easily, but they went into the winter fairly weak. We will see what happens come this spring.

The high tunnel only got down to about 15 F .... WOW! ... much warmer than I had planned. I am anxious to see what the spring brings for it. My next concern, is that the vines in the tunnel will break bud too early. Hopefully that risk won't occur until the beginning of April.

The rabbits are attacking my vines in my backyard. They chewed right through one, and damaged another severely. I have had snow cover in my backyard since the beginning of December, so food may be scarce. The vineyard is probably doing better.... there are a lot of owls in the area, and there has been periods with no snow cover, so the rabbits may not be as hungry as they are in the city. I'll need to scout the vineyard for animal damage in a few weeks.

Deep freeze

2008-01-19T23:05:00.000-06:00

We have hit a bit of a cold stretch. We have been sub zero fahrenheit
since Friday evening. This has been the longest sub zero stretch the
vineyard has seen since the vineyard was planted in 2003.

Up until last night, the coldest the vineyard has seen this winter was
-8F

Last night was near -10. I should have more precise minimum
temperatures when I check my max/min thermometers in a couple of weeks.

Hopefully the hightunnel is doing its job.

December 2007 weather update

2007-12-17T06:03:00.000-06:00

A missed St Pepin cluster

It has been a cold snowy December. Our low temperature in the vineyard hit -7 F on December 6, but for the most part, we have been hanging out in teens and twenties. We have had a good 8" of snow on the ground throughout, so everything should be good.

The inside of the high tunnel has been as low as 15F so things are exceeding my expectations on that front.

End of year Wrap up and goals for next year

2007-11-12T21:14:00.000-06:00

A successful season has come to a close. As is usual during this time of year my posts will decrease significantly until spring. I may post the occasional weather update if we hit a cold spell. I may also post updates on how well the high tunnel is performing.

2007 milestones
-Planted 300 more vines
-harvested 1500 lbs of grapes
-sold my first crop to a commercial winery
-finished high tunnel for experimental vines
-48 Lacrescent vines trained and ready for first small crop
-1st crop from St Pepin
-1st crop from LaCrosse

2007 challenges
- late spring frost took out over 1/3 of the foch. (it didn't kill them, but set them back 1 year)
-drought caused severe stress especially on the over cropped foch it may lead to little or no crop next year on those vines.
-drought also may have killed between 10 and 15 % of new plantings.
-unfinished high tunnel allowed deer to impact the experimental vines
-Early light frost reduced cold hardiness going into winter

Goals for 2008
-Plant 200 Marquette vines.
-Have a Well drilled in between vineyard 1 and 3 for irrigation and frost mitigation
-put in a trellis with steel endposts in Vineyard 3
-Increase foch yield from 900 lbs to 1500 lbs
-Maintain or slightly increase LaCrosse and St Pepin yield ( about 600 lbs - 900 lbs)
-get first harvest from experimental vineyard ~100 lbs
-start a foliar feeding program
-buy new pull behind sprayer
-finish trellis in high tunnel

The High Tunnel is DONE!!!! It took a lot of weekends, but it is finally done. I finished it on Saturday with help of my brother Jon, my sister Ann, and my bro in law Dave.

Outside

Inside

First Fall Frost/freeze

2007-10-15T06:39:00.000-05:00

I'm posting this a bit late. We had the first significant frost/freeze in the Vineyard Friday Morning (10/12/2007)

There are still a couple of things to do in the vineyard before the snow flies. I need to fertilize the vines with some potash ... since low potassium is a big problem in the vineyard. I also need to bury any graft unions on the grafted vines.

Posts will definitely slow down until Spring when pruning starts in March. I will probably only post a few reports through the winter. I will probably post a Season summary and goals for next year in December.

Maiden Voyage at Captain's Walk Winery

2007-10-03T07:17:00.000-05:00

This past Friday I got to visit Captain's Walk Winery, the winery where my Foch grapes are being made into a wine. The winery just opened in spring of this year. It is housed in a gorgeous Victorian aged home in downtown Green Bay near the Fox River.

The winery is definitely a unique experience. The wine essence garden along the pathway to the winery was a unique idea. I definitely got the feel that the winery was very much about wine education.

Plaque near the essence garden.

Inside the winery you enter the receiving room, and just beyond you immediately see the production room, where the magic happens. I took a picture of fermenter #3 ... where the Foch grapes from my vineyard were just finishing their primary fermentation. The winery already had that wonderful winery smell from the fermentation. The wine in this lot will be made into a blush wine and named Maiden Voyage. They will only be making about 75 cases. The wine will be bottled in a very unique "ship shaped" bottle. They hope to release it very early next year.

SVV grapes fermenting in fermenter #3.

The tasting room is also a unique experience. The decor is as gorgeous as the rest of the winery. But what is really cool is the big square plexiglass covered hatch which allows you to look at the barrel/aging cellar. Very cool.

Well this is a vineyard blog .... so I want to update the vineyard status a bit. We've had as much rain in the last week as we have nearly had all summer. The last of the Saint Pepin was sold. All that remains is some LaCrosse. It's holding at about 18.5 brix, and has a lot of "bad" berries. I'll probably pick it in the next week, for my own use.New plantings

I also did an assessment of the new plantings. The Rose chafers and the drought has been hard on them. I planted 100 vines each of Frontenac, LaCrescent, and Prairie Star. I went through and looked for signs of life. Prairie Star fared the best, I only see one with no life signs. The Frontenac had 5 vines not make it. All in row 11? LaCrescent had it the worst ... I lost 24 out of the 100 planted. It's not unlikely to lose a few more over the winter. Note: last year, I never lost a single laCrescent vine.

Grapes have been delivered and are ready for pressing

2007-09-25T14:47:00.000-05:00

The grapes have been put into the winery warehouse and will be crushed
and pressed tomorrow. Almost 900 lbs.

Grapes made it to the winery

2007-09-25T14:42:00.000-05:00

We just got to Algoma where the grapes will be processed.

All the grapes are picked

2007-09-25T12:24:00.000-05:00

Here is an empty Foch vine .... All the Foch are picked.

Trailer is Full!!!!

2007-09-25T12:22:00.000-05:00

I guess I had a good crew. We filled up the trailer by noon. And all
are picked.

Last row to pick

2007-09-25T11:24:00.000-05:00

We are down to the last row.

A lot of hands make quick work

2007-09-25T10:11:00.000-05:00

My brother-in-law Dave and his parents tackling a bunch of Foch.

Grandma and Treva sorting through the grapes

2007-09-25T10:04:00.000-05:00

Grandma is getting lots of help from Treva.

An early morning start to picking

2007-09-25T07:04:00.000-05:00

Rains just went through, so it will be a wet early start to picking.

Live Blogging from Sampson Valley Vineyard Today

2007-09-25T05:53:00.000-05:00

Today is picking day for the Foch. I'm going to try to blog
throughout the day from my phone. Hopefully add a few pictures too.

Foch Picking on Tuesday

2007-09-24T07:08:00.000-05:00

The foch will be picked on Tuesday. My number aren't stellar .... brix ~18 and ph about 3.00, but the yellow jackets are beginning to cause damage, and the Winery will be crushing and pressing on Wednesday, so it is time to get them in. I'll send an update with Tuesday or Wednesday with final sugar and acid numbers and hopefully some pictures.

Surviving a frost .... barely

2007-09-16T23:24:00.000-05:00

Ice On The Vines!!!

It was a tense weekend. Due to the drought, and overcroping my foch, I need to let the foch grapes hang longer to ripen. As of Thursday, they were still under 18 brix. The forecast for Friday night had us on the edge of a frost warning, so I decided to spend the night in the Vineyard.

I got to the vineyard at about 9:30 pm. I checked my max min thermometer, which is in the upper part of the vineyard. It already read 38 F!!!! I had to hustle. The skies had quickly cleared, and I knew it would only be a matter of a couple of hours before I reached freezing.

My pump for my sprayer had broken a couple of weeks ago, and I brought up a replacement. I got the sprayer working by about 10:30 pm. I filled my sprayer tank with filtered warm pond water. I also added some potassium bicarbonate to the tank ... an organic mixture to kill powdery mildew. It also has some frost protection ability.

ATV with Sprayer.

I made the first run without incident. I put another thermometer in the bottom corner of the vineyard where the cold air pools. by the time I finished my first spraying, the temperature in the bottom corner was about 33F. I went back to the pond to refill.

I brought a sleeping bag and gear to take naps between vineyard runs. I decided to abandon any sleeping plans when I found that the temperature was dropping so fast.

I made about 8 to 10 total runs between the pond and the vineyard. The temperture at the top of the hill in the vineyard made it down to about 30F. The lowest temperature I saw in the bottom corner was 25.3F ....

By sunrise most of the vines had a thin coat of ice (see the picture at the top) The thickest ice was in the bottom corner.

In the end all of the foch with fruit survived the frost with minimal leaf damage.

Foch with grapes made it.

The foch in the bottom corner did get quite a bit of frost/freeze kill, but some of the upper leaves made it through. None of these vines had any fruit, and their survival through the frost was less critical.

Frost damaged foch vine.

The projected harvest of Foch, is now Tuesday, September 25. The folks at Captain's Walk Winery are planning to make a blush style wine from it .... that is if it survives until I can pick it :) The yellow jackets have discovered the grapes, and have begun to damage some fruit. Hopefully the lady bugs don't find them too.

Some Heat, some Sun, maybe a bit overcropped?

2007-09-07T18:35:00.000-05:00

Well we have had a solid week of sun and a few days of some pretty high heat (a high of 92 F!). As of last night the foch brix are about 17.3, the St Pepin are 17.1 and the LaCrosse pulls up the rear at 15.6.

I made a little plot of the Brix and Ph over the last few weeks. I have only been taking the Ph readings the last couple of weeks, and put it in a spread sheet. The solid lines are the brix (scale on the left) The dashed lines are the Ph(scale on the right.) What's interesting, is that during the cool rainy period during the second week from the end of August, brix did not change much. It really climbed during the sunny moderately warm period, the next week, but then slowed again when the sunny and very high heat arrived this week. The Ph in general has not changed much at all, with the exception of the foch ph going up substantially over the last few days. I think I will be picking the Foch the weekend of September 15.

The LaCrosse seems to be progressing the most steadily, but it seems to be the variety with the most significant disease problems too. I may pick these next weekend, no matter what their brix. They seem to have a thinner skin and are less durable than the St. Pepin. Any I don't sell will be chapitallized (sugar added) and made into a dry white wine.

The St Pepin have reached a little over 17 brix, and will probably make it to 18 by next weekend. Any of those that don't sell will probably be allowed to hang, and be harvested for a late harvest sweet wine.

The foch are by far the most healthy looking, but also a bit overcropped. If I would have anticipated the drought this summer, I would have thinned the crop, so the vines could more easily ripen their load.

Ripening has slowed

2007-08-26T16:44:00.000-05:00

St Pepin

I was out at the vineyard on Satruday (Aug 25). I did some mowing, since grass began to grow again with the inch and a half of rain we got over the last week. The ripening at the Vineyard has slowed. The cold misty weather of the last week has kept the grapes from doing too much. The LaCrosse and especially the Saint Pepin have begun to take on a beautiful amber color. The grapes definitely taste fruity and sweet. The brix are about 14.6, and p.h. is 2.82. I expect that they will be ready to harvest in about 2 weeks. The LaCrosse have actually ripened the most in the last 2 weeks they are now at about 12.9, where two weeks ago, they were down near 9.7.

Foch

The Foch look very good, but sugars have not changed much in the last 2 weeks. Still coming in in the mid 14s. P.h. is about 2.7. I am worried that they may be a bit overcropped. We really need some dry sunny weather to get them near 20 brix. Still have a few berries that haven't changed. Not sure if that is due to the dry stressful summer, or overcropping. Disease pressure has been higher in the last week, but I see little signs of it.

Foch vine loaded with clusters.

I have a few clusters of seedless concord. Very nice taste. Very "grapey". The ripest berries show a brix of about 14.4. I also have a fair number of Landot Noir clusters. I may end up yanking these at some point if their performance doesn't improve. They are sitting at about 13.4 brix.

I also spent a good chunck of the day preparing the vineyard for next years Marquette vines. I have 200 ordered. I Measured and staked out the rows. 10 rows 8 ft apart 6 ft between vines. This is a bit closer than my other varieties, but I thought I would try it out.

Prepared and staked out area for next years grapes.

Okay, now I want no rain.

2007-08-23T17:26:00.000-05:00

Ripening has slowed significantly over the last week. It has been cool for most of the week, and then hot and muggy the last few days. Luckily the heavy rain has been avoiding the vineyard so far. I've been keeping tabs on the total precipitation using the New Noaa precipitation site.

Here is the total precipitation over the last 3 months (This continues to update, so may not make since at the time you are reading this.) What it shows is that in the location of the vineyard, we have had only 2-4 inches total in the last 90 days. Here is a link that shows the departure from normal over the same period; over 8 inches below normal!. The vineyard is located in that dry spot just North West of Green Bay.

At my house in Madison, I have had about 8 inches in the last 2 weeks.

The vineyards and the folks here really want some dry weather.

Veraison is almost complete

2007-08-13T17:24:00.000-05:00

Veraison is about 80% complete. And I would swear they went from 80% in the morning, to 95% complete by the time we left. I took a few sugar reading in the vineyard with my refractometer, here are the numbers

On Sunday 8/12/2007

Foch 14.7 brix
St Pepin 13.7 brix
Lacrosse 9.8 brix
(brix ~ % sugar)

I tasted a few of the berries. The Saint Pepin already tasted quite good. Acid levels are much lower than last year. The Foch acids are also noticeably lower. I would guess, that by the time we pick the TA (total acidity) will be near .75 g/l (last year it was very high, about 1.1 g/l !) The weather in the next few weeks will be important in determining what the final values will be.

If I had to guess I would say the Foch will be ready to harvest Labor day weekend, give or take a week. I may adjust this depending upon the customers needs. Unless I let the St. Pepin hang for an Ice wine, they will be ready to pick about the same time. I think The Lacrosse will need a couple weeks more than the Foch or the St Pepin.

By the way .... if anyone that reads my blog is interested, the Lacrosse will be available at $0.75 a lb "pick your own." I'll post more details as I know them.

Bird Netting on the Foch.

Karen and I spent most of Sunday in the vineyard. Since the foch was ripening fast, and the dark berries are very tempting to birds we put bird netting over all of the foch. The Saint Pepin and Lacrosse being green/white grapes are far less tempting, but we may net those too in a few weeks.

We actually got a bit of rain Saturday night. The guage showed about .4 inches. This is the only rain in about a month. We decided we better still give the new plantings a drink, so we hauled water to them, and gave each of the 300 vines some water. Also, since it had been humid the last week, I sprayed the older Foch and Lacrosse vines with Armicarb (an organic Potassium based fungicide.) I don't see too much disease, just a lot stressed vines due to the lack of water. I did see what I think may be some anthracnose on some of the Lacrosse. I'll double check some of the literature to see if that is indeed what it is. Mydormant (pre-budbreak) spray of lime sulfur(also organic) is my primary means of controlling anthracnose. I have read that it can still show up, if there are a lot of nearby wild grape vines. Which there are lots near the vineyard.

Oh, .... One More Thing .... I asked Karen to marry me this weekend while we were at the vineyard. She said yes.

Lots of rain, but not in the vineyard.

2007-08-08T17:35:00.000-05:00

Lots of rain in Wisconsin so far this week. I have had nearly 3 inches in my backyard in Madison, but not a drop in Sampson at the vineyard. I'm sure all of the rain will come the two weeks just before I am ready to pick .... the worst possible time.

We are getting a lot of heat and humidity. I may hit the vines with some Armicarb this weekend. (Armicarb is an potassium carbonate based Organic approved fungicide to kill powdery mildew and blackrot.)

Very Dry

2007-08-04T21:26:00.000-05:00

Vineyard on August 4, 2007

It has been very dry at the vineyard. This is great for reducing disease pressure, but the vines are definitely under stress. We have had about 1.5-2inches of rain since May. We have been watering the new plantings, but they are struggling. Even the more mature vines never developed the canopy that is required to ripen the grapes.

Veraison has barely begun. About 5-10% complete. I thought I would be a few weeks ahead of last year, but it looks like I may be about the same now. Rain and humid weather is expected this week. Hopefully I will get more rain than just the humidity. I think harvest may be the Labor day weekend or the weekend after depending on the weather over the next few weeks.

The vines in the lower South east corner that got frosted out this spring have recovered nicely. That are is a bit lower, and moisture is not quite as scarce.

The high tunnel vines are growing very well, but they have better moisture resources.

The saint pepin and lacrosse crops look good, but they certainly could use the rain too.

Lacrescent grapes being trained

2007-07-27T19:36:00.000-05:00

>
> Thought I'd post a picture of the lacrescent vines training status

Lacrescent grapes being trained

2007-07-27T19:30:00.001-05:00

Thought I'd post a picture of the lacrescent vines training status

Test blog

2007-07-27T13:46:00.001-05:00

Test blog from my phone

Things look pretty good

2007-07-22T22:58:00.000-05:00

I spent the weekend working at the vineyard. Things are looking pretty good over all.

For the last two months, it seems like every major rainfall has missed the vineyard.
We've had about 2.5 inches total over the last 2 and one half months. The older vines are doing well, but the one year old vines and new plantings are struggling a bit. We have watered the new plantings 3 times since planting. Memorial day weekend, at the end of June, and about a week ago. We finally got an inch of rain last Wednesday, but that hardly made a dent in our water needs.

The dry weather has been great for disease control however. I see absolutely no signs of powdery or downy mildew. Since we had the rain Wednesday, and have a had some higher humidity days lately, I did hit the vines with the Organic fungicide Kaligreen on Sunday.

Here is a synopsis of vine/grape status.

Vineyard 1 (Park Vineyard)
-5th year Foch.
Large crop. Maybe 700 + lbs. No disease signs. No obvious stress due to drought. Need more severe prunning and tying next year. Probably about 2-3 weeks from verasion. (when the grapes turn from green to bluish black)

-4th year foch
No crop this year ... retraining due to late frost. Coming back strong.

-5th and 4th year Lacrosse

Nice first crop. About 400 - 500 lbs some retraining needed. Fairly healthy

-4th year St Pepin

Very nice first crop. No retraining needed. 300-400 lbs

-4th year Landot Noir
No crop ... can't handle even mild winters. Good growth, but have had good growth in the past, and it hasn't recovered. May pull them next year. ( the info I read, said they should survive the winters, but even the mild ones take them out?)

-3rd year Concord
Having some trouble training these guys. They need more rain. Afew clusters here and there.

-2nd year Lacrescent
Started out strong. A few got hit by the rose chafers pretty hard. They could also use a good shot of rain or two. Pulled the grow tubes off them a week or so ago, to give them time to harden off.

Vineyard 2 (high tunnel.)
-All types
Doing pretty well. Need major training, but will have to wait until next year. Little disease, and good growth. Deer have been in there, but damage is not too bad.

Vineyard 3 (new plantings)

All types really need some water. The Prairie Star seem to be doing the best, followed by the Frontenac. The LaCrescent are spotty some doing well, others are strugling.

2007-07-20T12:40:00.001-05:00

Vineyard Status on the 4th of July

2007-07-04T17:53:00.000-05:00

Up to do some basic maintenance. Things looks good, but definitely could use some rain especially for the new plantings. I will be in Greece for the the next couple of weekends, so I won't be back untill the end of July.

In the mean time the berries have swollen and are looking good.

5th year Foch

4th year Saint Pepin

Chafers still there, but things are improving

2007-06-23T22:29:00.001-05:00

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

2007-06-18T20:44:00.000-05:00

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

2007-06-13T20:06:00.000-05:00

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

2007-06-10T20:04:00.000-05:00

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

2007-06-08T19:59:00.000-05:00

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

2007-06-04T23:55:00.000-05:00

LaCrescent from last year

LaCrosse just about to bloom

Foch in Bloom

Foch

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

2007-06-04T17:30:00.000-05:00

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.

Spring 2007 planting nearly complete

2007-05-20T22:19:00.000-05:00

We planted the Prairie Star, LaCrescent and Frontenac vines Saturday. About a half an acre total. Weather was nearly perfect! ... We finished just before the rain moved in.
I still have 25 more frontenac vines to plant (They were accidentally not shipped.)

With the completion of planting this year I now have 663 vines planted. Assuming 10-15 lbs per vine on average ... this would mean a good harvest would be about 3-5 tons each year.

Light Frost Saturday Night, May 12.

2007-05-14T22:12:00.000-05:00

We had a light frost in the vineyard Saturday night. (31 F on the min max thermometer) Took out the primaries on much of the 4th year foch which are in the lower South East corner. Random nipped buds elsewhere. The older foch were relatively unscathed.

Summary of primary bud damage.
2nd year Lacrescent: 40%
4th year Lacrosse: 5%
5th Lacrosse: 1%
4th year Saint Pepin 5-10%
4th year landot Noir: (has not broken bud yet)
4th year foch: 95%
5th year foch: 5-10%

Bud Status

2007-05-06T21:34:00.000-05:00

Foch

Foch ... (4th &5th year) Bud burst happened in the last few days ... some small shoots, several small shoots at the bases. Excellent bud survival... no sign of grape flea beetle.

Landot Noir

Landot Noir(4th year) .... Not seeing any bud swell, except for a few .... not sure if they are late to bud, or dead?

Saint PepinSaint Pepin

Saint Pepin (4th year) ... Not as far along as foch just begining bud burst, many very swollen buds complete burst expected in the next few days. Excellent bud survival ... should have a decent first crop this year (~200 lbs+).

LaCrosse

LaCrosse (4th and 5th year) .... About the same as foch as far as bud burst. Also had excellent winter survival. Looks like I'm finally recovering from the 2,4 D damage in 2004. I should also have a decent crop .. ~200 lbs plus.

LaCrescent

LaCrescent (2nd year) ... Good first year survival. Looks like I may have only lost one vine (maybe not) All were pruned back to a couple of buds, and bud burst happend over a week ago (but they are all near the ground) Put orange snap together grow tubes on them last week, and buried the tube bases this weekend.

Seedless Concord

Seedless Concord (3rd year) Bud swell ... about the same as Saint Pepin. Put old blue tubes on most of those this weekend... and trimmed most back to a couple of buds. Blue tubes are so I can use herbicide, since weed competition was an issue last year.

Other Notes ...
-Getting very dry, could use a good rain shower. Some rain predicted for the upcoming week.
-Warm temperatures are predicted this week.
-No sign of frost for the next couple of weeks ...

Bus break in madison and nearly Bud Break in Sampson

2007-04-30T23:21:00.000-05:00

My backyard foch grape vines broke bud last week Wednesday-Friday April 25-27. The shoots are now about 1-2 inches long. Bud break in Sampson should occur any day now. The foch were quite swollen. A few buds near the base of the trunks had already broken.

I put grow tubes on the LaCrescent vines that I planted last year. They look very good. I may have lost 1 vine ... but it may have made it ... hard to tell at this point. Most of the buds have broken, and most have only couple shoots. I pruned them back quite a bit, to get a nice strong trunk.

The Saint Pepin look to be a few days at least behind the foch. The Landot noir aren't showing a whole lot of life. The Lacrosse seem to be on about the same pace as the foch ... the Lacrosse look healthier this year than any year in the past.

I saw no grape flea beetle signs this year, so I did not spray anything for them.

Things seem to be about 1-2 weeks behind where they were last year ... hopefully this will allow things to miss any frosts.

I mowed the vineyard for the first time this season ... things look good an healthy over all.

Buds are a starting to swell

2007-04-16T21:32:00.000-05:00

The buds are just starting to swell. Our little cold spell was welcome earlier in the month; I think it slowed things down enough to avoid the inevitable frosts in late April and early May. I still think I may have bud burst earlier than last year. Looking at the current forecasts, I would expect bud burst to occur about or shortly after May 1.

I spent much of Monday (April 16) applying my dormant spray of Lime Sulfur. Conditions were excellent. Almost no wind, with temperatures in the upper 50's. The Lime Sulfur is an Organic spray used to control anthracnose and overwintering diseases. Vines are looking very healthy coming out of winter.

And then comes the snow!!!!

2007-04-10T07:20:00.000-05:00

It's been a cold April. We got down to 20 F last weekend. Luckily, I haven't seen any bud swell yet, so I don't expect any damage from the cold temperatures. I'm certain I faired better than the folks down south (Missouri, Tennessee, Arkansas) ... they reached record lows in the mid 20's to upper teens last weekend. Many of their vines already had significant growth. Much of this year's crop was lost due to the freeze.

This cold may actually help delay bud burst in my vineyard and therefore reduce the risk of loss because of a late frost. Forecasts for the next week are cold with only a slight moderation .... highs most days in the 40's F, a few 30's F, with lows in the 20's F.

We might get smacked with a big snow tonight and tomorrow(6" or more!!!) Things are still pretty dormant.

Found a good link that gives cold hardiness at different bud stages:
http://www.canr.msu.edu/vanburen/grpcold.htm

Refers to Concord, but should give me a ballpark idea anyway.

It's prunning Season!

2007-03-24T21:53:00.000-05:00

The last several weeks could not go by fast enough. After a mild December and first half of January, winter lasted until about 2 weeks ago. In the last two weeks however, things have warmed up nicely. This week, the last of the snow was out of the Vineyard, so it's time to prune.

Looks like I had very little winter kill or injury this year. Very good news. I began pruning yesterday, and it looks like only a couple a foch vines had any appreciable winter damage. The couple that had damage were due to late training , because of some late frosts in the lower south east corner. If I had to estimate at this point, I should get about 1/2 ton off of the foch this year .... assuming no late frosts, and good weather during the growing season.

Even the Landot noir looks like it did well this winter. The saint pepin, looked best of all. I didn't see any winter damage at all. I'm only 2/3 done pruning the saint pepin. I the have the Lacrosse, and Landot noir to finish up. Weather is expected to be in the 60s and 70s with scattered thunder storms the next couple of days, so hopefully I can finish that up by Monday.

Okay ... now it's cold

2007-02-07T17:15:00.000-06:00

After a very warm December and beginning of January, we've hit a cold snap. We have had lows below 0F for the last several days. The coldest we got at the vineyard was -14F two nights in a row ...( Saturday and Sunday nights Feb 3 and 4) While we got colder last year (-17 F) We didn't have as prolonged cold as we did this year. We also had a lot more wind during the cold periods with less snow this year. Not sure how the vines handle wind chill?

It was a very good year

2006-12-29T19:21:00.000-06:00

Sampson Valley Vineyard on December 24, 2006

Last post of the year and it has been a very good year! (Not just in the vineyard, but the vineyard is the subject of this post.) I had very little winter kill this past year. I got most of my insect and fungus problems under control. And I sold my first small crop of grapes.

I'm certainly finding out it is more work than I had anticipated.

I look forward to 2007 ... my hopes and goals for 2007.

- Plant another 100-200 vines La Crescent, Frontenac or Marquette?
- Be preemptive in eliminating grape flea beetle larvae.
- Increase harvest of Foch from about 260 lbs to over 1000 lbs
- get my first harvest of Saint Pepin
- get my first harvest of Landot noir
- get my first harvest of LaCrosse.
- Sell my grapes to a commercial winery
- Finish high tunnel and begin training vines
- Build or acquire a building for storing vineyard equipment
- Set up frost loss prevention system in the high tunnel

We have been having a very mild December after a chilly start in November .... I hope the weather is kind. Not too many updates until spring except for the occasional weather report.

First frost/freeze of Autumn 2006

2006-10-13T16:11:00.000-05:00

The vineyard got its first frost/freeze of the fall early yesterday morning. We had some very light frosts in the bottom corner earlier in the autumn, but this was the first real frost that affected the whole vineyard.

Things seemed to harden off several days ago, so I think the vineyard has entered the winter in a healthy state.

Blog entries will probably slow a bit .... I may enter a few about the high tunnel, but Things will start going agian when we hit our winter cold spells, and into the spring.

Little bit of color

2006-10-09T21:41:00.000-05:00

I don't know why, but the vines definitely are showing more color this year. I noticed it in many of the wild grapes down here in Madison, and I can definitely tell there is more color in the Vineyard in Sampson.

Still no frost, except for the bottom corner. I expect to get hit within the next few days though. The whole state should get below freezing in the next few days. I pulled the irrigation pump out this weekend, and emptied the hose lines, so I'm ready. Looks like the vines have hardened off well. A good preparation for the upcoming winter, so I think they are ready too.

Potassium does a vine some good.

2006-09-23T20:56:00.000-05:00

Things are winding up at the vineyard. Since the soils in my area are deficient in potassium, I spent the day putting down organic potash in the current vineyard and in the future planting locations. I applied the potash at a rate of ~5 lbs/ 100 vines. In the yet to be planted vineyard, I applied at a rate of 1 lb every 50 feet.(next years planting location)

Things still look fairly decent. The major problem appears to be some disease on the lacrosse. There are some mild powdery mildew infections throughout the vineyard, but nothing too major.

We did get nipped by frost in the lower South East corner. Maybe 6 vines got hit, but they are going to be retrained next year anyway.

2006 harvest is complete

2006-09-13T20:34:00.000-05:00

The 2006 harvest at Sampson Valley Vineyard was complete Sunday morning September 10, 2006. After a very cold morning (about 40 F) I had a perfect day for picking grapes. (no pictures yet)

Only foch was ready to pick this year. There were a few handfulls of lacrosse, saint pepin, and landot noir, but not enough to make any wine. Nine of my nieces and nephews helped, along with several of my brothers and sisters. Many hands made fast work .... we picked all of the grapes in about 1 hour! It was only 260 lbs, still, we made very good time. (note the size of my harvest increased 20 fold over last year's "tolken" harvest.)

That evening I measured my sugar, and acid ...

Brix 19.6
PH 3.16
TA 11.6 g/L

Better numbers than I had thought. But not great.

Next year I expect to have a harvest 4 to 6 times the size of this year's.