Potassium does a vine some good.

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

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.

Pre harvest readings

I took brix and acid readings on about 30 berries tonight. The brix was 18.6, the ph was 2.96, and the TA was between 1.1 and 1.2. Since cooler weather and rain is expected next week. I think I will harvest Sunday morning. (9/10/2006)

(note this was posted the following week.)

Foch Not ripe yet

I checked the titratable acid, ph and sugar on Thursday August 31. The brix was 17.2, TA was 1.5-1.6 g/liter, and the ph was 2.82. Not ripe at that point. The juice had a vegitative smell. Today ... Sunday, I checked the sugar again (not the acid) and it was up to 17.8 brix. The smell is much sweeter, and blackberry like. I think I will be ready to pick next weekend. There are chances for rain next few days, but I think I should be dry enough to harvest by the weekend. The sugar is lower than I would like, but I don't want to risk losing the crop due to predation or rot.

I will take measurements on Friday, and decide at that point if I will harvest on Sunday.

Rain, Rain go away

It has rained about 5 inches here in Madison over the last day and a half. My foch in the backyard are splitting .... not ideal grape ripening weather. I just spoke with my brother James, and he said they have only had about a half an inch over the last several days. We are expecting a bit drier weather over the next week. Maybe I will be harvesting Labor day weekend ... I'm still think the weekend after or even the following weekend. I'll take my next sugar and acid measurements Thursday or Friday.

I got an email earlier today from the Mitchel vineyard. They are planning to start picking foch this Tuesday. Not sure if the recent rains will affect them or not. .... It has been a bit drier down there than my back yard.

Ripening progress

I checked the brix this Sunday the Foch ranged from 15.6 to 17.2. The average was 16.1. There are several green berries on each bunch. I would estimate that about 85% of the berries have completely changed. I also checked the TA and p.h. The TA was off scale (greater than 1.4) and the ph was running 2.6 - 2.8. So there is a lot of ripening to go.

We got about an inch of rain over the last week, so that may slow down the ripening a bit. If we get a dry warm stretch, they may be ready to harvest Labor Day weekend, but I am going to try to wait until the following weekend.

Overnight Verasion?

I just got a call from my brother who lives next to the vineyard. He said that he took a walk through, and nearly every bunch of foch grapes had completely changed color!
They were 90% - 95% green on Saturday! (see the previous post) Maybe I'll be harvesting sooner than I thought. I'll measure the brix this weekend and see where things are at. I had thought picking would happen the weekend after Labor Day. Maybe I'll be picking Labor day weekend now?

The nets are up, verasion just starting, and some brix numbers

I and two of my nephews put about 350 ft of nets over the foch this weekend. We only put them over the foch on the west end of the vineyard where the vines are older and are bearing this year. I'll need about another 1500 feet of net for next year.... at $0.50 a foot not a cheap investment!

It was fairly easy to put up, but it will be a pain to take down.

I got my new refractometer this week. Friday evening (8/11/2006) I collected some foch, Saint Pepin and Lacrosse to take some readings.

Foch 8.8 brix (verasion is just starting)
Landot Noir 4.3 Brix (verasion has not started)
Lacrosse 4.2 brix
Saint Pepin 10 brix

Here is a picture of what I saw with the foch. A few berries have changed, but most are still green. I hope to pick when they reach about 21 brix ... hopefully the TA will .8 or lower.


I also started preparing for next year's planting ... Right now I am planning on planting 200 vines. Hopefully I can get the new Marquette varietal. I mowed and measured out the plot on the East side of the field. I plan on hitting it with some herbicide next weekend, and then till it before the winter.

Next years location for planting

The experimental pit vineyard is having its problems. Until I get the high tunnel up, it will continue to be decimated by deer. I've tried all of the deterrents I can, but the vinifera must be irresistible. They one again did a number on the vines. The damage is severe enough, that they have destroyed any possibility for a crop next year. I will bury the vines for the winter in early November, and hope for the best next year. If everything goes well, I will have a small harvest from them in 2008.

Verasion hasn't started yet

Foch

Verasion hasn't started yet, but some of the foch grapes seem to have an inner blue glow. I don't remember what preceeded verasion last year, but I think they should be changing in the next week or two.

I have a few grapes hanging on some of the other varietals ... here is some Landot Noir.

Landot Noir

I don't have any grapes hanging on the Saint pepin Vines, but should next year.

Saint Pepin

I also had some help this weekend. Five of my nephews, and one of my neices helped put down some stone mulch around the La Crescent vines planted this year. Here is a couple pictures as proof to their parents, that they actually worked ... or at least that they could pose for pictures so that they look like they are working. :)











Also ... we have been getting lots of rain lately ... another couple of inches in the last week. Things are very green for early August.

Bird nets

After verasion, and the grapes are near being ripe, they become more attractive to birds. I read of small vineyards being stripped clean in just a few hours. I only will have a small crop this year, but I think I should try to protect them. I looked at possibly buying audio deterrents ... these are recorded bird distress calls, played back at random to deter birds. I also looked at visual deterrents. Much of what I read claims that the visual deterrents are not very affective. And finally I looked at physical barriers.

Audio deterrents
-----------------------
Pros:
-easy to put up
-lasts many years
-moderate cost
-other growers in Wisconsin claim successful use
-may attract other predators, which may aid in keeping birds out
-unobtrusive visually
Cons:
-Needs AC, or car battery, if battery needs to be changed frequently or recharged
-birds get use to it
-questions about effectiveness
-may bother neighbors

Visual deterrents
-----------------------
Pros:
-fairly inexpensive and durable
-often easy to erect
-no noise to annoy neighbors
Cons:
-looks goofy with junk all over the place
-unproven or not affective

Physical barriers (nets)
--------------------------
Pros:
-Very affective
-One time cost
Cons:
-difficult to put up
-difficult to take down
-can be expensive for large vineyards


Since the audio and visual deterrents are not known to be affective, and I only have a few hundred pounds of grapes to protect this year, I decided to get some bird nets. I don't have a lot of vines to cover this year, so I got 4 nets that are 14' by 100'. These should comfortably cover the vines with the most production.

July 28 - July 29 Things look good.

(Sampson Valley Vineyard at Sunset July 29, 2006)

Over the last 4 growing seasons, it seemed like I would find more problems than success at the vineyard. This year has been MUCH better. I still finds lots of things to work on, but at least things look pretty good every time I get out there.

We got lots of rain over the last couple of weeks. Things look really good. Disease pressure is still quite low. Some signs of powdery mildew, but not too much. Nothing like last year. We have had some very hot weather recently. Two weekends ago, we were in the mid and upper 90's this weekend we were in the upper 80's to mid 90s and will be near 100 F the next couple of days.

No signs of verasion (when the grapes turn to their final color) starting. Last year it happen about the second week of August. Over all things look good. It appears as though I have had 100% success with the fresh LaCrescent plantings. Most seem to be doing well, even the ones that were hit hard by the rose chafers earlier this June. I sprayed RoundUp around them to kill the weeds and grasses. I used a 2 ft high and 2ft in radius homemade cardboard tube to protect the vines as I sprayed. I also sprayed around the Seedless concord which are also are not producing this year.

On Saturday, I sprayed the entire vineyard with Kaligreen. This will be the last spraying I do before harvest which I expect to be around Labor Day this year. I used a rather light spray schedule this year (but more that nothing like the previous years.) It appears to have been very beneficial.

The experimental vinifera vineyard is still battling the deer. It looks like the deer are visiting fairly regularly. Decided to try a trick I read about on one of the grape growing groups. Using high pound test fishing line. I strung 40# test around the plot... I am not hopeful, but until I get the high tunnel up in the next few weeks, it is all I have. Since this is just temporary until I get the high tunnel up, I didn't want to invest in another solar fencer. Speaking of solar fencer, I noticed some odd burning and blackening of some of the grape vine leaves in the park vineyard on the bottom row. It didn't take me long to realize that the burns were from the fencer! The shock from it is very light ... Kind of like a static shock, so I was surprised that it could damage the foliage. Anyway I moved the fence back a few feet from the vines to keep the foliage from getting anymore damage.

We have grapes!

It has been a while since I have been to the vineyard. I was out of the country for over a week, so this weekend was the first time in 3 weeks that have I been to the vineyard.

In general I had good news. No significant signs of insect pressure and no signs of disease. We had good rains a couple of weeks ago that gave everything a good boost.

I spent most of the weekend weeding, mowing and spraying.

After 3 weeks everything needed a good mowing. I then had to weed the new LaCrescent vines. I also removed the floating row covers that about 10 of the LaCrescent had on them. I don't know how much good the row covers did. The vines without the covering seemed to rebound nicely from the rose chafer damage, with no new signs of damage. The vines under the row covers seemed a bit stunted, and seemed to get a bit of a heat shock when it was removed. I think I may go back to the vine tubes next year for new plantings. However, I think I will get the snap together kind, and only use them the first year.

The concord did look terribly perky. Only a few vines are growing well. No panic from me, since they were really just planted for table grapes and I am more interested in wine grapes.

The La Crosse still look kind of poor. A few are doing well, but they just haven't recovered from all of their traumas over the last few years. This may be why there were so few grapes on the Saint Pepin. They need to be pollinated from another grape variety, and the LaCrosse they were planted next to did not have many flowers.

The Landot Noir, and Saint Pepin are both growing well. If the Landot Survive the winter, I may have a small crop on them next year.

The foch in general look better than they ever have. The four year old vines will even produce a nice small harvest. I estimate about 120 lbs of grapes ... maybe a little more. Not a lot, but it's a start.







I also sprayed a fixed copper spray to control downy mildew, blackrot and powdery mildew. The spray I used was Kocide 2000 (in which copper hydroxide is the active ingredient) ... not Omri approved, but still considered organic I think. ( not that I am seeking organic consideration.) I used about 1/2 cup of Kocide in 25 gallons of water. This is equivalent to 1 lb per 100 gallons. Which is on the low end of the suggested application rates. The temperature was in the upper 80s when I sprayed with a light breeze out of the South West. (I sprayed at about 11:00 am on Sunday) The leaves seem to dry very fast. I did not spray the top LaCrosse row since it was next to the Concord which is copper sensitive. 25 gallons total covered the rest of the vines. When the vines are mature, I estimate I will need about 50 gallons total. I also used about 2-3 ounces of spreader sticker.



In general disease pressure was low. I'm not sure if this was due to the weather, the dormant lime sulfur spray, or the kaligreen spray in June. What ever it was, the vines sure do look healthy.

The one major bad thing I saw was the deer eating the vinifera again. I hope they'll recover, but it has been a struggle with them. I didn't spend too much time on them this weekend. I hope to spend more time the next time I am up there in a couple of weeks.

Status mid June ... some herbicide damage

A good week!



Things looked pretty good the weekend of June 17-18. It was hot and windy this weekend. On Saturday, it hit 91F. Unfortunately, it has been a couple of weeks since the vineyard has seen any substantial rain. We could really use some right now.





The spraying last weekend seems to have been effective. I saw only a handfuls of rose chafers on the vines. I saw almost no signs of the grape flea beetles nor their larvae. The rose chafers were devouring a nearby rose bush and every milk weed in the area.

Speaking of insect damage. I did see something very interesting. In the vinifera, I purposely left any milk weeds I saw last weekend. This weekend the milk weeds were devoured by some type of insects. Completely skeletonized/defoliated. But I have never seen a bug on any of the vinifera or any damage from insects. What's protecting these? The root stock? The varietals?

I gave the vinifera a good weeding/tiling in preparation for the high tunnel. The fence seems to have discouraged the deer over the last week. At least I didn't see any fresh deer damage.

Vines at the park have entered full bloom. A little later than I would have expected since everything had been early up until now, but the cool May and cool shots during June slowed things down a bit.



Herbicide damage?
On Saturday, the vines at the park looked fine, but come Sunday, they had curled bubbly leaves. Looks like maybe herbicide damage? Possibly 2-4d drift? I have read that 2-4D volitilizes in hot weather. Since we haven't had a rain in so long, the herbicide may actually be from several days ago? Just guessing.

Give 'em a fighting chance

Bunch of pictures from the vineyard this weekend. Here is a picture of the vineyard from Sunday afternoon.


The vines are getting hit from the weather, bugs, and more bugs. Well, I decided it's time I give the vines a fighting chance.

The Rose Chafers are back, and back in force. This is the forth year in a row they hit my vines. Last year they showed up on about June 15, this year it was maybe June 10 or a day or two earlier. My notes only note them showing up in June the previous years, and were not detailed enough to know the exact date. Interestingly, the last two years appearances coincided within a day or so of the cutting of the hay field that the vineyard borders. Related? Possibly.
Here they are attacking the LaCrescent vines
The vines that hadn't been attacked yet were covered with floating row covers. Unfortunately, the row covers really could only be used on the newly planted vines. And the jury is still out on whether they will even work.Benjamin Franklin was quoted as saying that the definition of insanity is to do the exact same thing over and over and expect a different outcome. I haven't really sprayed or done anything significant to eradicate them. Well this year was different. I really didn't want to lose another year on the Concords, and lose a year on the LaCrescent. So after surveying the extent of the infestation ... significant, and since bloom hadn't really started, I decided to spray Sevin. I thought it was either use it or lose some vines. The LaCrosse were hit every year by them, and they are in their forth year and will still not bear a crop! The Sevin looks like they did a number on the Rose Chafers... at least the ones that were part of the current infestation. Check out the picture....


I am also seeing a lot of damage from the grape flea beetle and its larvae. Several of the laCrosse got hit the hardest, and it looks like no or very little crop off them again this year. The LaCrosse definitely have had it the hardest. It's hard to believe I haven't lost one of those vines completely yet.

You can see the grape flea beetle larvae on the left ( a bit blurry) You can also see the damage to the canopy of the foch on the right.

The LaCrosse showed the most damage. I read that the Larvae damage from the grape flea beetle was typically "minor" ... ha! minor?... look at the picture!

The Sevin should also knock them back too. I'll evaluate status next weekend, but the next spray of Sevin may have to wait until after bloom, which I expect to start in force in the next week or so.

And to top it off. I had a frost Sunday morning!!! It's June 11th!!! A FROST?!! It only hit the lowest corner where the air drainage is poor, and only the foliage closest to the ground, but come on.... here is a picture of the a vine that got it pretty good.Not all is lost . Some of the foch was looking quite good. See below

Rose chafers return and so do the deer

Well, the Rose chafers are back ..... they already laid waste to about a half dozen laCrescent, and about 3 concords. They really like the young foliage. I found them on the saint pepin and foch too, but the most damage is to the recent plantings. I also saw considerable damage from the grape flea beetle and its larvae. The hit some of the foch, but nothing the vines can't handle. They hit some of the saint pepin harder, but I think they will spring back. I sprayed the top 5 rows of vines with Omri approved Insecticidal Soap. It is organic, although it should not be sprayed on vines from bloom until shatter. The top five rows are not in bloom yet, nor do I intend to allow them to bear fruit this year. It looked like it may already be working on some of the rose chafers.

I also sprayed kaligreen on the vines this evening. This is Potasium bicarbonate. Used primarily to kill powdery mildew. Also organic.
The deer struck the pit vineyard again. Did quite a bit of feasting. Kellan and Brent helped me put up a 4 strand 6 foot high fence. Hopefully it will slow them down. They also were nibbling on the vines at the park; especially the bottom row.
Although their damage was much more severe at the park.
In addition to mowing and spraying, I spent a lot of time pruning suckers from the vine bases, and retraining some of the vines with bad trunks etc. I'll try to take some pictures tomorrow and post them.

Some hot weather and more rain & vinifera survival rates

This past weekend brought more rain and some hot weather to the vineyard. Saturday night June 27, we got a pretty big storm which added 2.5 inches in one shot. Added to the about 4 inches earlier in the month means plenty of moisture in May. Saturday, Sunday and Monday also had highs in the upper 80s and low 90s. Things are really sprouting now.

While the saint pepin did not get hit too hard by the frost in early May, it did get nailed by the grape flea beetle pretty hard. Things will be okay, but a lot of mishapened early leaves. I may try to spray with sevin next spring in mid to late April, and early May to limit the damage next year.

Nearly all of the freshly planted LaCrescent have already got leaves, maybe 2 or 3 of the 48 don't have leaves yet. In the past, some plantings didn't get leaves until late June, so I may still have 100% survival yet. I sprayed Round up between the vines to suppress weeds until I can get stone down. I still haven't planted the extra vines sent. I may plant them on a gravelly hill side in the back 40. I noticed that they are sprouting pretty intensely now.

I haven't done my first fungicide spraying yet. I plan to do it the weekend of June 10. Probably a little late, but you do what you can. I plan on spraying the kaligreen this time, and fixed copper, and kaligreen the weekend of the 24th. I may spray some sevin also especially on the concord and LaCrescent vines which are more susceptible to the rose chafer damage. The rose chafer isn't due until about the June 15, but since everything is about 1 -2 weeks early, they may be there by the end of the first week in June.

I also scouted the vinifera vineyard.... I lost several vines to rodents. Of the 75 vines I have 44 left. Most of the vines lost were the chardonnay.

Here are the vine types with there row positions and survival from west to east
S F M F C
8 9 13 10 4

S=Cabernet Sauvignon
F=Cabernet Franc
M=Merlot
C=Chardonnay


Finally, I pruned off many of the suckers from the bases of the foch. Several vines in the lower south east corner, are going to have to be retrained from the bases. They were pruned back or sometimes the tops were lost either due to frost or freeze problems.

We did get bit by the frost on Sunday night and Monday night May 21-22. But mostly just the lower buds and lower shoots, especially in the lower south east corner, but not nearly as damaging as the May 6 freeze. (many of the dead shoots and buds from that freeze are still visible.)

Missed me by that much

Well my scouts(my Mom and brother) tell me the frost was
very light, no major damage that they could see. I'll know for sure this weekend when I get up there.

We are expecting much warmer temperatures over the next several days. If things have progress well enough by this weekend, I plan on spraying.

Another frost ? Grape flea beetles.

Frost/freeze predicted for tonight. Right now we are on the edge of a cloud mass. If it stays far enough north I should be spared. If it goes south, radiational cooling may cause another frost.
Most of the secondary buds haven't broken yet, but some primaries on the st pepin have just begun to break. Overall it would not be good timing.

I spent the weekend mowing and trimming around the vines. Vine winter survival looks excellent. Surprisingly, I haven't lost a single La Crosse vine from last year .... I'll have to recheck my notes, but I think I had some marked as completely dead, so imagine my surprise to see some life on every single vine! Also it looks like I only lost one seedless Concord; I am very surprised, especially after the severe damage from the Rose Chafers last year.

My scouting also revealed more significant grape flea beetle damage. I'll have to read up on how to best control them. Sure are a lot of dead primaries from the frost a couple of weeks ago. Very sad to think how healthy things were looking prior to that frost, and now all the damage. Oh well.

I got the irrigation equipment installed. I still need to work on the drip lines, but the pump and hose from the water to vines is all set up. Only found one leak. It may have been caused during storage, I may try to leave it in place next year. I'll just have to make sure the water is purged first.

The vinifera look a bit better than I thought. still lost several due to rodents, but enough survived to make it worth it. I will have to replant a dozen or so.

Satellite image of last week's freeze

I pulled the data from the GOES-12 weather satellite for the freeze last Friday night. I enhanced it to show where the temperature was above and below freezing. I then made an animated GIF with cross hairs on a few select vineyard locations that I knew the exact latitude and longitude. It is somewhat hard to tell what is what, but the animation helps. If you are planning a vineyard, you may even be able to spot good locations that would be less likely to experience a late spring frost. http://jerroldr.googlepages.com/home

LaCrescent vines arrived and planted

It has been raining pretty steady for the last 3 days. As of yesterday(Friday) we had 2.5 inches at the vineyard. The the corrected shipment of vines also arrived yesterday. I was able to plant them between rain showers. A total 48 Lacrescent were planted. I got 60 vines total, although I am not sure why that many was ordered. This may have been a mistake on the vine suppliers part. Not sure.

I'll probably put the remaining LaCrescent into a trench until I can plant them in a couple of weeks. I still have to decide exactly where I will put the vines.


Took a look at the frosted buds on the vines. They look pretty dead. I noticed that most of the Saint Pepin had not broken bud, so I may get some reasonable production from those. I also noticed some damage from grape flea beetles. Remains to be seen how much I'll have to deal with them.