Surviving a frost .... barely

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?

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

Lacrescent grapes being trained

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

Test blog

Test blog from my phone

Things look pretty good

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.

Vineyard Status on the 4th of July

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

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.

Spring 2007 planting nearly complete

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.

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

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 ...

Bud break in madison and nearly Bud Break in Sampson

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

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!!!!

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!

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

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

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.