On June 28th we had rain! Rain! Such an unlikely occurrence that we had scheduled a crew to come up and do what is called canopy management. This consists of tucking long vines in the last of the three wires to attempt to keep shadow off the fruit zone as well as tipping any that threatened to fall over the fruit zone, pulling internal laterals which grow inside the fruit zone and also shadow the fruit zone and can prevent good air circulation, and suckering to remove all unwanted growth on the vine. Well, it rained…poured actually. Mom had a cold so she gave up and we went back to the City. Fast forward ten days and the rain had produced so much extra growth that it looked like the Amazon! Below you can see the before and after. It took two full days: yesterday 7 guys worked all day, and today 19 guys worked all day, but the vineyard is all buttoned up now. We will begin watering soon and hope for an early verasion (the grapes change color from green to purple) because approximately 45 days after the beginning of verasion we can expect harvest. It is a pretty good indicator, but there are several things that can get in the way. Let’s not go into that now!
And one last thing that you might be interested in. Remember the Rootstock + Bud = Perfect Marriage post? (You can review by going back a few posts.)
Here are the before and after pictures. For the most part we had success…we estimate at least a 95% take on all the grafts that were done! The budders will return sometime this month to re-bud any failures…and a new block of pinot noir Swan clone is born!
Ok folks…that’s it for today! We are having a Fourth of July redux BBQ tonight and I am going to need to help mom with some of the arrangements. Until next time!
My neighbor has two dogs. One of them says to the other, “Woof!”
The other replies, “Moo!”
The dog is perplexed. “Moo? Why did you say, ‘Moo’?”
The other dog says, “I’m trying to learn a foreign language.” – Morey Amsterdam
Belly rubs, Cookies, and Pinot Noir (or, a few of our favorite things) 