Harvest!

Really late getting this posted, but here were the end results:

  * Varietal name - Merlot
    * Date harvested - 8/8/2010
    * Tons produced - 346 lbs
    * Final Brix, PH, and Acid measurements - brix 21.75, TA .5, specific gravity 1.094
    * Vine age - 3 years
    * Number of vines - 500
    * % Sold (and, optionally to whom) - 0
    * % Retained by you (for winemaking, etc) - 100
    * % Unharvested (reason - i.e. no buyer, black rot, etc.) 0



    * Varietal name - Cabernet Franc
    * Date harvested - 8/8/2010
    * Tons produced - 237 lbs
    * Final Brix, PH, and Acid measurements - Brix 21.25, specific gravity 1.090
    * Vine age - 3 years
    * Number of vines - 350
    * % Sold (and, optionally to whom) - 0
    * % Retained by you (for winemaking, etc) - 100
    * % Unharvested (reason - i.e. no buyer, black rot, etc.) - 0

Feels really close...

The heat is doing a number on the vines.  Lots of yellow/crinkled leaves when I got back into town and checked tonight.  And on top of that, my drip system has died - some problem with the valves.  I tried feeding water back in manually with a bypass hose tonight so we'll see if that works.

I took 100-berry samples of both grapes tonight for testing:


Merlot:
Brix: 23
pH: 3.24
Acid: 0.4 - 0.5 (?)

Cab Franc:
Brix: 20 3/4
pH: 3.22
Acid: 0.6 (?)

I think the Merlot are techically ready to pick.  The grapes are very soft/squishy feeling with a few out there even starting to shrivel.  When we tasted the juice after testing it, it was delicious!

As the numbers would indicate, the Cab are close behind and the juice there was quite sweet and tasty as well, with just a hint of tartness/bite.  Waiting for professional feedback on next steps, lol.

Netting finished.

We finished getting all the netting up and tied on this morning.  It took the entire 9500 ft bale roll almost exactly to cover all the plants with fruit. Next year we'll need two rolls.

I'm out of town tomorrow through Wed. so I'm planning to do another berry sample this coming Thurs (8/5).  Temps are gonna be hot - 100+ for the time being.

Final spray?

I sprayed again last night for what I hope might be the final time, at least for the Merlot.

25 gallon tank:
4 oz of Rally (1 packet)
1 lb Elevate (for Botrytis)
24 oz Sevin

I included sevin because I've have seen some new caterpillar activity and the little "grapevine fleas" (no idea what they are really called.

We need to really focus on getting netting up for the cab now.  When spraying last night, I noticed a couple of vines in section B that had almost entire clusters eaten, I assume by birds.

Chemistry

Heather Violett and Gary Greenfield came by to have a look at the vineyard today.  They had some great advice and also showed me how to start testing ripeness.  We took 100-berry samples of both the Merlot and the Cab F. and tested for Brix, pH, and Acid.

Merlot:  Brix 18, Acid 0.65
Cab F. Brix 16, Acid > 1

Targets are Brix 22-25, and Acid 0.3 ish (I forgot the exact number). This let me know we have a while yet before we pick, but as we knew, the Merlot are much closer than the Cab F.  We had no distilled water on hand, so an accurate pH will have to wait.

My new toys: Refractometer, pH meter, and Acid text kit :)

This also lets me know it's okay to spray again, which I should be doing tonight - but it just started raining :(

More Netting

We've been continuing to put up netting each evening, and just have two rows of Merlot left - the longest and the shortest.  I checked A1 - the short row that still has no net and sure enough, there is some evidence of bird damage to the few clusters that are up there.  The Merlot seem surprisingly ripe at this point.  The Cab, not so much.

A11 and A12 - the longest rows with netting so far.

Also, I found a total surprise in A13.  It looks like the nursery sent us one vine that's a white varietal.  I had no idea until just tonight.  I also have no idea what kind of grapes they are, but they are almost as ripe as the Merlot.

Surprise!  Chardonnay? Sauvignon Blanc?

I've taken the day off tomorrow to spend most of it working in the vineyard.  Want to finish netting on the Merlot, and mow everything for the most part.  I have Heather Violett and Gary Greenfield probably swinging by on Sunday to take a look, so I'm looking forward to getting their input and testing sugar for the first time!

July 16th 2010

We will be out of town this weekend, so we're trying to get as much netting up as possible before noon tomorrow.  So far, 8 rows done, so 5 more and the Merlot will be complete.  Then we'll start on the Cab F, which are about a week behind the Merlot in ripening up.

I also finished mowing and spraying roundup in section A tonight.

Took a few pictures of the Merlot:

Veraison Continues

Veraison has continued with the Merlot now probably 75%-80% completely colored.  The Cab F is all staring to turn as well, with about the same percentage of the clusters now light/pastel purple.

We spent the evening last night putting up netting.  Managed to get it up on both sides of A 2-5.  We are making a last swipe at canopy management/shaping as we go down each row, since it will be hard to get at the vines afterward.

Trying to get all that done ASAP, and also need to spray roundup again and mow down the rows!

Veraison!

The Merlot have hit veraison.  I hadn't been able to get up to section A for a few days because of the rain and when I went up to spray last night, I found them all turning colors!  The Cab F. are just showing signs of starting to turn as well. 

I checked with Heather to make sure it was good to spray still, and we opted to go with Abound again but without the sulphur so as to keep any unpleasantness out of the wine.  So I sprayed abound only, refilling the tank one time with an additional 8 gallons.

12 ounces for 24 gallons

 4 ounces for an additional 8 gallons



This morning, I started putting up the bale netting in A.  It think it's going to work out okay, though I'm still trying to figure out the best way to have it up and still be able to do some canopy management for a while longer.  I think I'm going to affix it to the top on both sides of each row for now, lettting the bottom hang loose. That will let me lift it up and do work underneath.  Then, when the birds/animals become a threat, it will be a simple matter to seal the bottom together.

Black Rot :(

So it looks like I've got some black rot issues, mainly with the Merlot.  Thankfully, it's limited in scope.  I'd estimate maybe 3% - 5% of all clusters are affected, and I just sprayed again, so hopefully it won't spread any further.  Last night, I started the process of removing infected berries and clusters.  After doing 5 rows, I only ended up with half a bucket (5-10 lbs), so that's a good thing.  Hopefully I can wrap up this process before the weekend is over.

New Fungicide

I sprayed again on 6/29 after a night of rain.  I have already gone through groups I and II so I had to pick up some Abound to move to group III.  The stuff is expensive :(  $280 for a single gallon.

Sprayed 25 gallon tank with:

12 ounces Abound
2 cups Sulphur
24 ounces Sevin

I've been seeing a number of clusters that have gotten raisins/mummies in them.  This affects maybe 3% - 5% of the total crop, and I'm hoping this will be something that can be stopped with the fungicide spray.

Beyond this, I have been dressing vines in section B, 3 of 9 rows complete.

Section A Finished

Finally finished one complete pass dressing vines in section A.  Next, it's on to B.  Things seem to be going very well at the moment.  The vines are healthy, no bugs or fungus issues to speak of, and the fruit looks to be in fairly decent shape.  There are a few clusters with little raisins in them - not sure why - but it doesn't seem wide spread.

Spray Troubles

Well I managed to spray fungicide/insecticide again, but it took 4 days this time because of troubles with the pump on the sprayer.  I ended up replacing it twice.  Two from Atwoods burned out, I assume because they were 6 not 7 amps. So I got a 7 amp pump from Lumber 2 which worked to finish up section b.  I think I broke it when flushing the tank afterward though :(

Anyway, I sprayed with

4 oz Rally
1 1/2 cups of sulphur
24 oz of Sevin

Started on 6/9 and finished on 6/12

Hornworms are here

Got back into town Sunday 6/6 and made a trip to check on the vineyard.  First sighting of hornworms out there - killed 6 or 7 of them.  Planning to spray Sevin tonight (6/8) to address.

June is here

So it's now June, and things are continuing to be very busy in the vineyard.

Most recently, I sprayed another application of Roundup on Monday, 5/31 to keep the weeds under control. 

Also, over the holiday weekend, I fired up the irrigation system for the first time this season to test it.  For the most part, it seems to be in good working order.  There are two rows in section A that need another clamp at the end of the drip hose because they are leaking.  Most of the emitters seem fine, but there are a few that seem to be clogging/dripping slowly.

The fruit is coming along nicely, and we continue to WPTT, working our way through section A (3 1/2 rows left for this first pass this season).  Then we'll move down to B, which should take less time per plant.

A couple of other updates.  Caterpillars continue to be seen - various kinds - but no appreciable damage as of yet.  And no hornworms.  The latest specimen from yesterday:

And good news:  The two vines that had glyphosate damage seem to have run the course and have started putting out healthy leaves again.  Hopefully they will catch up next season.

Some Pics

These are a couple of weeks old, but give an idea of the where the vineyard was at in mid-May.

First Bugs

I've noticed a few small caterpillars in the vineyard starting this week. They are small, furry guys at this point.  Nothing like the green monsters that I've found later in the season.  I bought some sevin though so I can start including that in my future spray mixes to be proactive about the hornworms.

Other than this, just continuing to WPTT.  Finished with A 1-7 and now working back upward from A13.  Also have continued putting up wire and now have top wires on A 10-14 and B1.

05/20 2010

Lots of rain lately - noticed some wilting/blackness on a few leaves and ends of growing shoots.

Sprayed on 5/20

Full 25 Gallon tank

Rally: 1 4 oz water soluble packet
Captan - 4 cups - 32 oz. 

1 1/2 cup of sulphur (24 tbpspns) as deer repellant only.

This time, tank ran out of mix with 6 rows remaining.  Mixed another 1/4 tank (8 gallons) with:

Rally - had to cut open one packet and poured in about 1/4 (1 oz).
Captan: 1/1/2 cups
Sulphur: 2/3 cup

Have noticed two vines with deer damage at far end of row 1, so I reapplied deer repellant to all perimeter posts and plants.

Most of the cuttings we planted seem to be leafing out, so this appears to have been successful.

Also, we seem to have hit shatter and are now into fruit set on most of the vines.

05/09 2010

Continuing to rotate through the vineyard doing the WPTT (weed, prune, tie, thin)  routine with each vine.  I noticed when I was outside on Sunday that some of the Cabernet Franc vines are hitting bloom:

Cab Franc clusters are starting to bloom

When I noticed this, I decided I better focus exclusively on thinning the cab for a while so I don't hit veraison with too many clusters still on.  Managed to get 16 vines in A14 thinned, taking off 176 clusters.  I hate pulling the fruit off, but I know it's necessary to make sure I get the sugar levels we want in the end:

Pains me to pull clusters off the vines, but necessary...

Also, being the complete noob I am, I finally realized the purpose of the double catch wire system for the VSP trellis - so that you can simply tuck shoots between the wires for easy canopy management.  Putting cross bars up will be cost prohibitive at over $3 apiece times over a hundred posts in the vineyard, so I'm experimentally trying a workaround.  I added a second wire several inches below the first catch wire so I can tuck shoots between them vertically.  I think this will work okay, but time will tell.

Experimental vertical catch wire pair on A14

05/05 2010

Spent last night from 6:30 - 9:15 spraying.  This time I rotated in Rally and Captan as follows:

Full 25 Gallon tank

Rally: 1 4 oz water soluble packet
Captan - 2 cups - 16 oz.  (Should have done 4 cups for 32 oz, but miscalculated)

Also, I put in 1 cup of sulphur (16 tbpspns) as a possible deer repellant only.

Having learned that many agents are sensitive to PH, I got a PH test kit and found the water to be very high - 7.6 ph.  I'll need to look into food grade citric acid or something similar before the next spray to correct for this.

Continuing to WCTT (Weed Cut Tie Thin).  Because of time limitations, I've started getting up an hour early to to this in the mornings before leaving for work.

05/02 2010

Applied roundup to section b last night.  The roundup I put on section A is just now starting to show effects, but the mix concentration of 1 oz per gallon seems to work.

Apart from this, I have started a slow, general maintenance routine, going row by row.  At each vine I:

• Weed
• Prune
• Tie
• Thin

 I'm being less aggressive with the pruning this season because I want enough leaf surface area to ripen fruit.

As for thinning, I'm currently thinning down to one cluster per shoot up to 12 " below the cordon and removing everything lower than that.  I'm sure I'll need another thinning pass before veraison.  I've come to see what "they" mean about Cab Franc overcropping.  Way too much fruit starting on them right now:

04/27 2010

Missed a few posts, but nothing major going on.  Sprayed roundup on section A, but may not have been strong enough, since I don't see results yet (after a week).  May have to do it again.

We also replanted 22 Merlot with cuttings over the weekend.  Used a bulb planter for the holes and dipped plants in rooting hormone, then marked with orange flags for visibility.

Just been tying vines as much as possible and have recently started thinning.  For now, I am thinning all plants down to a single cluster per shoot.  This is a time-consuming process, and I only got 3/4 of A8 done last night.  This will be the activity for a while.

Problem Children

I've noted several health issues here and there in the vineyard so far that I wanted to post.

Probably the biggest issue is what looks like Eutypa in a lot of the Merlot.  Budbreak saw a sizable number of these vines only pushing shoots at the very ends, with all the intervening buds staying closed.  Not much I can do about it this season, but I have a feeling I'll have to cut these back severely next pruning season.  Here's a good example of one of the affected vines (which Darlene calls the "special ed" vines, lol).

Eutypa?

Next up we have an issue which seems to only affect 2 of my vines at this point, but unfortunately, one of those was one of the most robust I had up to this year.  All of the foliage is stunted on these in a way that looks almost like herbicide damage.  However, I had not sprayed any herbicide when symptoms showed, and these two vines are far apart in the vineyard, surrounded by other healthy vines.  Scratching my head here:

This sad guy was one of my best vines last year :(

For comparison, the vines directly next to the one above (panning the camera right) look like this:

Sad Guy's neighbors seem just fine. Hmmm.

Last, we have a couple of vines that seem to have some kind of deficiency with yellowing away from the leaf vasculature.  This is something I saw in a few vines last year, too, and in the same area.  Not water stress, so maybe nutritional?

Some sort of nutritional deficiency?

4/19 & 4/20 2010

Monday (4/19)

Marked the end of three straight days of rain and a 9 days since my last spray, so I sprayed.  Mix was the same as last time, minus the Sevin:

2 lbs of Manzate ProStick
20 tablespoons of Sulphur

Tank mix was about 20 gallons and was just enough to cover all rows, one side.  As the canopy fills out, I'll probably have to go 1.5x or 2x to get coverage on both sides.

The repairs to the sprayer worked nicely, and it was soooo much better getting this done when I didn't have to fight the equipment!

Tuesday (4/20)

Fixed the last bits of PVC in the vine shack and turned the water supply back on.  Now I don't have to drive down to Dad's to fill up the sprayer or to create my bleach solution anymore.  No problems with clogs this year, but there's a slow drip coming out of the pressure tank I'll have to fix.

Tried to start putting glyphosate under the rows after that, but only got 3/4 of A14 done before packing it in.  The tiny 1 gallon pump sprayer wasn't going to cut it.  (I ended up buying a 15 gallon spray tank from Lumber 2 the next day for $80 that I'll dedicate to herbicide).

So I spent the rest of the evening putting up wire 4 on B1, 2, and 3.

4/17 2010

It's been raining all weekend.  But it's a light, steady rain, so I spent some time yesterday putting up the rest of the 3rd wires in section B.  They're all done now and I can start on 4ths. 

Also spent about half an hour doing some random tying where the shoots really needed it.  I'm going to need at least one more box ag ties before long. 

As soon as this rain clears away, I'll need to spray ASAP.

4/14 & 4/15 2010

Wednesday night, I ran wire 3 on B3 and B4 before the spool ran out.  Spent the rest of the time tying and pinching suckers off of B3.

Finally just made a trip to Estes to get the fungicide I need.  Rally 40WSP and Captan 50WSP.  $117 total cost.

Thursday night, I picked up the parts at Atwoods I needed to fix my sprayer and replaced the switch wire and the hose clamp.  Hopefully things will work better the next time I need to use it now.  Also grabbed a 5lb. bag of sulpher and some rooting hormone.  Also tied and pinched B4.

Snapshots of the three sections on Thursday, 4/14:

Section A 4/14

Section B 4/14

Section C 4/14

Obvously the 4 rows of section C are my stepchildren here, but hopefully they'll grow enough this season to justify putting up end posts and trellis!

4/9 & 4/10 2010

Well, the cab vines seem to have perked up some and most all of them seem to be growing again, with a couple of exceptions.  I'll keep watching them, but whatever seems to have affected the leaves and given them "pause" seems to have passed, I hope.

I did manage to spray on Saturday, so maybe that had an effect, though I can't be sure.

Speaking of spraying, getting it done was quite a challenge because my sprayer seems to have developed issues over the winter.  Tried to go out and get it done Friday night (the 9th), but when I turned the sprayer on with water only, liquid gushed from a 4" crack that had formed in the handle of the spray wand.  Went to Atwoods and picked up a pair of new ones and hooked one up, only to find that the Y adapter coming out of the pump was cracked and spurting water too.  I didn't need to the feed to the boom, so I hooked the handheld wand tube straight into the pump and that seemed to get things working fine.  By then it was too late to spray, so I called it quits for the night.

Next morning, I came out and put my chemicals in as follows:

2 lbs of Manzate ProStick
20 tablespoons of Sulphur
28 ounces of Sevin concentrate

Got over to the first plant and found the sprayer wouldn't turn on!  Fiddled with it for a few minutes and every time I'd flip the switch, it would spurt for a second and stop.  THEN the connector for the wand slipped off and sprayed the mix all over me and the mower :(

After this going on repeatedly for a while, I finally figured out two things:

• The pump switch has a short.  I have to ease it over to the 3/4 position and it stays on. Need to replace it.

• The clamp connecting the tube to the wand is too loose.  Need something stronger.  Otherwise I'm unable to use the trigger because everytime I release it, the pressure shoots the tube off and pours mix everywhere.  

So I had to leave the trigger on the whole length of every row and use the pump switch to shut off the spray between rows.  A waste of mix that way, but it got the job done this time.  Barely.  Frustrating...
Last thing I did was put deer-off on the perimeter rows again since we'll be out of town a few days.

This is what the cab looked like Saturday:

4/7 & 4/8 2010

Lots going on the last couple of days.  First, the boring stuff.  Pruning progressed and I only have one row left in section a and the four in section c left.

As I posted on FB, pruning last night kinda sucked.  35 MPH winds, temps at 45 degrees.  Still got two rows done, though.

Also, I noticed that all of the cab already have dozens of little clusters, so should be able to count these to get and idea of crop load on every vine and adjust accordingly.

Clusters are already on the cab

Last night, we had a cold snap and a frost scare. I checked min. temps on my thermometers and got these readings:

Bottom: 36.7

Mid:    36.9

Top:    38.7

It was dark when I checked this morning, but I didn't feel any frost on leaves or on the ground.

However, when I came home and checked the plants tonight, I noticed all of the leaves look puckerd and wilty with gaps taken out.

 This has me worried.  Leaves didn't look like this 2 days ago.  What is it?

I also noticed that a number of vines have little black mosquito-like bugs resting on them.  Tried to take a picture tonight, but it was too dark :(

Something has happened within the last two days to make them unhappy. I checked the new pocket guide I got from OSU and the only thing that even looks close is phomopsis, though I don't really see the accompanying spots.  Based on what's happened in the last 48 hours, candidates include:

Borderline frost damage
Wind damage
fungus
bugs (maybe the ones I saw?)

I'll check again tomorrow to see what the status is and I plan to spray both fungicide and insecticide Saturday or maybe even as early as tomorrow night....