Well here we are again with another year half finished...
Many of us experienced an unusually harsh and long winter for 2017-2018; which seems to be a growing trend in our
little part of the world. I worried as
March turned into April and the snows continued with no signs of life in the
vines. By this time the previous year,
the vines, still in buckets, were greening up with new growth. However, when the last of the snow finally
melted, all but three of our vines burst into green. Three vines lost to winter kill were less
than 5% of the total. Not bad by most
standards.
April moved into May, which remained colder than normal and with a lot of rain. The vines continued
to produce leaves and flowers…and so did the weeds. Our soils retain water well and the
rootstock is growing strong (as evidenced by the difficulty we had removing the
dead vines!) so we made the decision to allow cover crops to remain between and
around the vines to keep them from putting on too much growth. We are now rethinking that decision and may
place a stone mulch along the rows this autumn.
In spite of the scorching heat, endless rains, and weed competition, the
vines didn’t show any signs of stress.
As the growth continued and we moved into the beginning of
June, we prepared for the onslaught of Japanese beetles. Sprays worked until the rain washed them
away. The beetles returned and we
sprayed again. And again…and again. It was getting ridiculous. Then we noticed that the beetles choose the
newest leaves at the tops of the developing canopy.
Maybe we can use this to our advantage when the vines are fully mature
and flush with growth in the next year or two and avoid spraying so much. While we don’t like using pesticides that can
harm our bees and other beneficials, we also don’t want to have a population
explosion of beetles every year to munch our vines and retarding their growth. They also take a toll on our orchard and crepe
myrtles. The solution we’ve settled on will
be to plant roses, most likely a climbing variety such as ‘New Dawn’ that will also shade
the peafowl aviary near the vineyard.
Roses have been used for centuries in many wine growing regions of the
world as a bellwether for the vines.
Their cultural requirements are similar to grapes and they share pests
and diseases. The appearance of
something like downy mildew on the roses is an early warning to take the
necessary precautions with the vines.
Not to mention the additional benefits of beauty, fragrance, and their
attraction to pollinators and other beneficial bugs. We are also installing purple martin housing
to lure these voracious bug eaters to our farm.
This year, the second year for our vines, we also set up our
trellis system. Most of the varieties
we planted do well with the vertical shoot positioning, or VSP, system so that
is the method we are using. With row
lengths at or below 100 feet we chose to use steel end posts with earth anchors
and aluminum line posts. We selected 12.5
gauge hard wire with Gripples® for tensioning.
I can’t say enough good things about gripple tensioners and the gripple
tool. They are so easy to use.
We set the first wire at 40 inches so that our Livestock
Guardian Dog can pass beneath without disturbing vines or grapes. The typical height for the first wire, or
cordon height, ranges from 36 inches to 48 inches. Once the wires were in place and the vines
actively growing again, it was time to select and train the cordons. The Cabernet and Syrah vines took to this
quickly and easily, starting into the second, and in some cases, third wires by
mid-July. Approximately half of the
Albariño and Norton vines also started into the second wire. The Semillion and Traminette vines are
lagging behind and a few have yet to grow tall enough to reach the first wire. I suspect they aren’t well suited to our
microclimate but we will give them another year or two before we replace them
with more suitable vines. This is the
reason we started with a small test plot before investing in larger blocks of
vines.
In January and February we will begin our first spur pruning
in preparation for our first grape crop in 2019!
And lest I forget, tickets are already on sale for Powhatan’s
Sweet 16th Festival of the Grape on Saturday, October 6th!
