Tuesday 21 October 2014

Year End Report - Reds

So another year has gone by in our research vineyard.  If we pick things up from our mid season report in July we can see that the hot and dry weather had both positive and negative effects.  From an earlier post you can see some concerns about irrigation and possible having a shallow sand bed in some areas, suggesting our water is leaving the vineyard rather quicker than we thought.  A bit more attention to irrigation will be required next year.  The big issue this summer was running out of volunteers to maintain our spraying program.  We missed a few sprays in critical times and powdery mildew really took off.   Plans are already in the works for a better system next year as it will be very critical if we are to get fruit.  Here is year end update on the Reds.

Marquette vines that never grew in 2014
Baltica/Marquette: neither of these varieties ever really took hold, with most vines stunted and never really reaching the fruiting wire.  This can be attributed  a little bit to lack of moisture as noted in an earlier post, so with that in mind we will prune back and start fresh again in 2015.  This vines were quite resistant to powdery mildew as well.
Nice growth in Zweigelt and Leon Millet

Regent/Zweigelt/Pinot Noir Cl 115/Leon Millet: Regent lagged a bit behind the other in this group, but all grew rather nicely and even production throughout the rows.  Pinot Noir was hit with powdery mildew and Zweigelt sustained a bit as well, but the rest of this group were pretty hardy and resistant. A number of these will be pruned to the fruiting wire in a cane pruning method

Baco Noir/Labelle/Cab Libra/48-05-83:  Cab Libra had a very good bounce back from the first portion of the year, but still struggled a bit at the north end of the row.  Labelle finished the year with the most vigorous growth of all reds.  Unfortunately all these varieties had very heavy powdery mildew issues - even the Blattner types which should be more resistant.  Cab Libra will be pruned back, but the other varieties will be pruned a combination of cane and spur (cordon).

A final report on the whites will follow soon!

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