Mid-Season Report - Reds

Greetings all, our summer started pretty wet with a decent amount of precipitation falling in June, prompting 2 or 3 mildew sprays.  As we approach mid-July, the sun is out in full force and (knock on wood) no signs of mildew on the vines.  I turned on the irrigation last week for the first time this year.  As our vines get more established, the need to irrigate will get less and less, to the point where a bit of drought and stress will be ideal for the vines.  We also got into a bit of gopher trouble with some damage on a few vines from a resident rodent, but hopefully we curtailed it before it got too bad.

If we go way back to the May 17th post, I detailed the stages of bud break on each of the red varieties. for this post we will look at where things are at now.

Marquette - one vine struggles, others thrive

Baltica/Marquette: by May 11, all Baltica had achieved 100%  bud burst with Marquette not far behind confirming our research that these were early budding varieties.  While there is a mix of success, for the most part the growth since bud burst has been really slow.  About 30% are barely above the height of the milk carton, with the struggles appearing to be more on the North end of the row.  Not always, in some cases a vine is really struggling and beside it is a vine that is thriving.  It the struggles continue, lab analysis may be required on the leaves to see if there are some nutrients lacking.   These varieties are showing some nice internode spacing and are proving to be quite manageable in the vineyard.

Regent and Pinot Noir - nice consistent growth in entire row

Regent/Zweigelt/Pinot Noir Cl 115/48-05-83: by May 16 these varieties were very near 100% bud burst.  All 3 varieties are showing consistent growth throughout the rows and have quite manageable vigour.  The internode spacing is pretty good.  All varieties should be established enough to lay down our first fruiting cane this pruning year.  To date quite manageable in the vineyard.

Leon Millet - poor internode spacing as a result of excessive vigour

Labelle with die back on the cane

Leon Millet/Baco Noir/Labelle: by May 16 these varieties were very near 100% bud burst.  Leon Millet and Labelle are really vigorous and proving difficult to control. Despite allowing multiple shoots to grow in attempts to slow things down, the vines continue to grow, with internode spacing close to 7 or 8 inches on many vines.  In year one we laid down canes on the LaBelle as it was so vigorous we felt it could handle the additional stress.  Many of the canes started very nice, but then all the shoots on the cane mysteriously died back last week.


As there are other thriving shoots on the same vine still alive we assume it was too much stress and growth for such a young vine.  Baco Noir has slightly less vigour, but the internode spacing is still quite large.  A little more investigation is required to see how we can control the vigour.  These vines require more attention in the vineyard compared to others.

Cab Libra: Cab Libra was very slow out the gate, where only 25% bud burst had occurred by May 16.  The variety also had substantially winter die back and we ending up have to replace 7-8
vines.  Cab Libra is still very slow, similar to Baltica and Marquette.  In this case the vines appear to be doing better at the north end.  The vines are showing some nice internode spacing, but it will be tough to be able to lay canes down on the whole row this year.

In the next week or so, I will detail the progress on the white varieties.  In the meantime, I welcome any and all feedback on what I presented here.