I have one of those too>
Starting a new vineyard
- Thread starter GSMChris
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They are so dang floofy in the winter!
So I was out in the vineyard this afternoon, following the shoot thinning and generally assessing the potential crop. It looks really good - I’m probably going to drop some clusters especially in the Syrah and Primitivo zones as both seem to have set quite a bit of fruit.
Syrah
Primo
Syrah
Primo
Grenache - which was frost damaged - is all over the map…
Blossoms
Mega clusters
And everything in between. For the most part, clusters are behind rest of the varieties with very small berries.
For now I’m in wait and see mode but probably will do some serious thinning down the road to even out maturity.
Blossoms
Mega clusters
And everything in between. For the most part, clusters are behind rest of the varieties with very small berries.
For now I’m in wait and see mode but probably will do some serious thinning down the road to even out maturity.
A rather belated set of updates to follow - but first a summary of the year.
It’s been a really productive third leaf year - 1600 pounds so far and probably another 1300 still to be picked. It’s been a strange weather year with higher than normal rain last winter, a late frost that clobbered the Grenache vines (which then rebounded nicely - tough plants), and higher than normal followed by colder then normal temperatures. Grapes are ripening in a strange sequence due to the heat - Mourvèdre was first to veraison and second to pick when it really should be last of the five varieties. Primitivo- which is normally would be quite early - is still at 22 Brix where it has been for a couple of weeks.
Pests? Well, in the first three years, most common/destructive have been deer, gophers, birds, and ground squirrels.
We’ve had some luck on the first two this year. Our vineyard shares a fence with a 100+ acre commercial vineyard. Well, they lost five acres of vines to deer last year and so they put up a ten foot deer fence around their vineyard. Well, it turns out, nearly all of our deer pressure was from deer hopping over the fence from their vineyard. From watching the game cameras in the vineyard, we are averaging perhaps 1 or 2 deer a month- and they don’t try to get through the electric fence wire (not hot) that guards the end posts. Gopher population has been hammered by having a fox move into the vineyard along with two kits. They have quickly learned that yellow on a gopher hawk trap means easy dinner - so we do find our traps mostly laying on the ground after they’ve tripped. Saves us the effort of digging them up!!
In the category of doing something constructive, we have put up two falcon kites this year. They are on 30 foot fiberglass pools with 25 foot long strings - so get up into the air quite a ways. A light breeze gets them up in the air and a wind has them darting around in the air. The starling swarms stay well away which has reduced the bird damage dramatically. We also used the reflective tape and that may have also helped. In the rodent thread, I’ve described our battle with the ground squirrels which is winding down as the grapes get picked. They wiped out two rows of Grenache - but we caught 28 of them so far so I think we win…
Individual threads on each varietal to follow.
It’s been a really productive third leaf year - 1600 pounds so far and probably another 1300 still to be picked. It’s been a strange weather year with higher than normal rain last winter, a late frost that clobbered the Grenache vines (which then rebounded nicely - tough plants), and higher than normal followed by colder then normal temperatures. Grapes are ripening in a strange sequence due to the heat - Mourvèdre was first to veraison and second to pick when it really should be last of the five varieties. Primitivo- which is normally would be quite early - is still at 22 Brix where it has been for a couple of weeks.
Pests? Well, in the first three years, most common/destructive have been deer, gophers, birds, and ground squirrels.
We’ve had some luck on the first two this year. Our vineyard shares a fence with a 100+ acre commercial vineyard. Well, they lost five acres of vines to deer last year and so they put up a ten foot deer fence around their vineyard. Well, it turns out, nearly all of our deer pressure was from deer hopping over the fence from their vineyard. From watching the game cameras in the vineyard, we are averaging perhaps 1 or 2 deer a month- and they don’t try to get through the electric fence wire (not hot) that guards the end posts. Gopher population has been hammered by having a fox move into the vineyard along with two kits. They have quickly learned that yellow on a gopher hawk trap means easy dinner - so we do find our traps mostly laying on the ground after they’ve tripped. Saves us the effort of digging them up!!
In the category of doing something constructive, we have put up two falcon kites this year. They are on 30 foot fiberglass pools with 25 foot long strings - so get up into the air quite a ways. A light breeze gets them up in the air and a wind has them darting around in the air. The starling swarms stay well away which has reduced the bird damage dramatically. We also used the reflective tape and that may have also helped. In the rodent thread, I’ve described our battle with the ground squirrels which is winding down as the grapes get picked. They wiped out two rows of Grenache - but we caught 28 of them so far so I think we win…
Individual threads on each varietal to follow.
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