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.

Vineyard Update

So we are into June now, and the vines are pushing our shoots like crazy.  Volunteers are busy keeping things in check, ripping of suckers and tying up the canes.  For this year we decided that we not let anything flower or fruit, so we are also pinching off any little clusters that form.  We want to keep the vine concentrating on growth and root production at this point.

Nice spacing on nodes

We can always use more volunteers for this work.  We have tried to break the vineyard down into rows with volunteers "adopting" the basic maintenance on a particular row (or more!).  At this point we have 21 rows, with only 11 being looked after.  If there is anybody out there willing to help, let me know and it will much appreciated.

Winter Damage

Winter kill on Cab Libra

On closer inspection, we actually sustain a bit more winter damage then initially thought.  A number of the canes that we laid over got hit hard, with little or no bud production.  On most of these we had to start over again from lower shoots.  It was an especially cool winter and new vines are so fragile they could not handle it.  The worst hit variety was the Blattner "Cab Libra".  It sustained damage in close to 35% of the row.  We are hoping there  will be some action from shoots coming off the roots and a better success rate next year.

Events:

We had a very successful Red Wine and Food Pairing session on May 31, presented by Linda Harrop and myself.  We had 10 participants involved, tasting Gehringer Brothers 2012 Pinot Noir, Skimmerhorn 2011 Marechal Foch and Kalala 2009 Organic Zweigelt.  The Zweigelt was by far the choice of all.  Thanks to all who came out and the Burton Learning Centre for sponsoring the event.  Maybe a Sparkling wine event in the Fall?

June 20-21 is Burton City Daze.  ALGGS will be working with the Burton Barleys Baseball putting on the beer garden.  Come on out and support the event, loads of activities, dinner, music etc.  If you are interested in helping out  in the beer garden, let me know.

Spring Budding Reds

A couple of days ago I posted about the white varieties and their spring progress, from buds to shoots.

This post will look at the reds.  Reds are for the most part a bit behind the whites, but as many of them are selected for a short growing season it may not make a difference.  Again we noticed that the north end seems further along then the southern end.  Will this be an ongoing concern or trend?  Only time will tell, but something for us to keep watch for.

April 24, 2014

Typical bud swell

Early Bud Swell: 48.05.83 

Bud Swell: Labelle, Zwiegelt, Regent, Pinot Noir Cl 115, Cab Libre

Advanced Bud Swell: Baltica, Marquette, Baco Noir, Leon Millet

May 1, 2014

Bud Swell: 48.05.83, Zwiegelt, Regent, Pinot Noir Cl 115, Cab Libre

Advanced Bud Swell: Labelle, Marquette, Baco Noir, Leon Millet

Bud Break: Baltica 

      

Baltica, May 1

May 11, 2014

Bud Swell:  Cab Libra (about 10% at advanced bud swell or bud burst), Baco Noir (about 15% at advanced bud well or bud burst)

Advanced Bud Swell: Pinot Noir Cl 115 (about 30% at bud burst), Regent (about 30% at bud burst), Labelle (about 40% at bud burst)

Marquette, May 16

Bud Burst: Baltica (100%), Marquette (80%), Zweigelt (75%) Leon Millet (50%), 48.05-83 (50%) 


May 16, 2014

Bud Swell:  Cab Libra (about 25% at advanced bud swell or bud burst)

Bud Burst: Baltica (100%), Leon Millet (100%) Marquette (95%), Zweigelt (95%),  Baco Noir (95%),  Pinot Noir Cl 115 (95%), Regent (80%), Labelle (80%), 48-05-83 (80%)


With the exception of Cab Libra, all the reds are moving along quite well.  The Cab Libra seems to be struggling with many of the shoots showing very little activity.  This variety may need some additional attention if nothing happens soon.

With rain in the forecast for the weekend, then some hot sun following, we should start to see some heavy growth n the next couple of weeks, which of course will mean shoot tying and suckering chores!  Volunteers?

Spring Budding, Whites

The exciting part of spring with our new vineyard is documenting the stages from bud to bud burst. This is very crucial information for our research as it can determine which varieties will perform well.  If they bud too early they could be susceptible to a late frost and potentially wipe out a whole growing season (or seriously stunt it).  If they bud to late, it could lead to fruit that does not fully ripen.  So what is too earl or too late for our region and our varieties?  I guess over the next few years our research and data collection will dictate what those parameter are.

If we look at just our White varieties in this blog we can break the data down by date and variety with at least a few vines showing these stages.


April 24, 2014

Typical bud swell

Early Bud Swell: Epicure, 48.05.49, Siegerrebe

Bud Swell: Chardonnay Cl 76, Auxerrois, Ortega,

Advanced Bud Swell: Madeleine Sylvaner, Madeleine Angevine, L’acadia Blanc, Osceola Muscat, Petit Milo






May 1, 2014

Bud Swell: Epicure, 48.05.49, Siegerrebe, 
Auxerrois,

Early bud burst on Chardonnay Cl 76

Advanced Bud Swell: Madeleine Sylvaner, Madeleine Angevine, L’acadia Blanc, Ortega,

Bud Break: Osceola Muscat, Petit Milo, Chardonnay Cl 76, 

Osceolo Muscat

May 11, 2014

Bud Swell:  Siegerrebe (about 10% at advanced bud swell or bud burst),

Advanced Bud Swell: 48.05.49 (about 30% at bud burst)

Bud Burst: L’acadia Blanc (90%), Ortega (90%), Auxerrois (90%), Osceola Muscat (80%), Epicure (80%), Madeleine Sylvaner (75%), Madeleine Angevine (75%), Petit Milo (65%), Chardonnay Cl 76 (50%)




So by May 11, 2014 every white variety had sustained some bud burst activity.  There are definitely some slow movers, but overall things are about where we would expect and we should be beyond the frost factor.  

One odd thing that seemed to be noticeable - most of the advanced stages were observed at the northern end of the plot.  It is unclear at the moment why this is and deserves some further attention.

Information on the Reds to follow.

Vine hardiness

Well it was a long winter, but finally towards the end of March we were able to get out, prune and assess any winter damage to the vines. In general the vines performed quite well over the winter with only a couple of losses. Using an arbitrary ranking system of 1 to 5, where 1 is the most "winter hardy" and sustained the least damage, a brief outline of our assessment is below.  For the most part the vines were pruned back to 2 buds which should provide better growth this year.

Reds:
48-05-83: low summer growth, sustained some winter damage and was pruned back to 2-buds.  Hardiness rank: 3

Labelle:  good summer growth, mainly pruned to 2 buds, but some canes were laid down for first cordon.  Hardiness rank: 2

Cab Libra: sustained winter damage to canes and was pruned back to 2-buds.  Hardiness rank: 4.5

Baco Noir: Very vigorous summer growth.  No real winter damage and some canes were laid down for first cordon.  Hardiness rank: 2

Zweigelt: Low summer growth. No real winter damage, pruned back to 2-buds.  Hardiness rank: 2

Leon Millet: good summer growth.  No real winter damage and some canes were laid down for first cordon.  Hardiness rank: 2.5

Pinot Noir (Cl. 115): Low summer growth. Some winter damage and pruned back to 2 buds.  Hardiness rank 2.5

Regent: Moderate summer growth, small amount of winter damage, mainly pruned back to 2 buds.  Hardiness rank: 2

Baltica: Very low summer growth.  No winter damage, pruned back to 2 buds.  Hardiness rank: 1

Marquette: Very low summer growth.  No winter damage, pruned back to 2 buds.  Hardiness rank: 1

Whites

Siegerrebbe: Good summer growth.  Some winter damage in middle cane area, pruned back to 2 buds.  Hardiness rank: 3

L'Acadia Blanc: Good summer growth.  Little or no winter damage, some canes laid down for first cordon.  Hardiness rank: 1

Ortega: Good summer growth.  Some winter damage in middle cane area, pruned back to 2 buds.  Hardiness rank: 3

Chardonnay (Cl 76): Good summer growth.  Winter damage on canes, some quite high up.  Pruned back to 2 buds.  Hardiness rank: 2

Oseolo Muscat: Good summer growth.  Very little winter damage.  Some canes laid down for first cordon.  Hardiness rank: 1

Auxerrois: Low summer growth. No real winter damage, but all vines pruned back to 2 buds.  Hardiness rank: 2

Mad Sylvaner: Good summer growth.  Some winter damage, all vines pruned to 2 buds.  Hardiness rank: 3

Mad Angevine: Good summer growth.  Some winter damage, all vines pruned to 2 buds.  Hardiness rank: 3

Petit Milo: Low summer growth. Some winter damage, all vines pruned to 2 buds. Hardiness rank: 2

Epicure: Good summer growth. Quite a bit of winter damage.  Hardiness rank: 4.5

48-05-49: Good summer growth. Quite a bit of winter damage.  Hardiness rank: 4.5

Two things we noted:

1) Winter damage seemed to be heavier in the low spots we have in the white rows.  The low spot provided a bit of a sink hole where the cool air accumulated and the evidence suggests it was enough to affect the vines in this area.

2) We also got hit with some powdery mildew so a heavy spray of lime sulfur was applied to kill any existing spores.

The next blog will outline some data on the stages of budding on each variety.

2013 Climate Study Results

Greetings all!  Quick note, our March 26 wine tasting event was postponed, new date to be determined.

As promised in my last blog below is be a presentation of the lasted results from our climate study.  Overall 2013 felt like a better year and a better growing season then 2012 and the numbers reflect that (good ole trick knee was right again!).  Again all our data is calculated over the growing season from April 1 to October 31.

A big shout out and Thanks to Jerome Goodman, fellow Burtonite, who took it upon himself to volunteer his time to take our hard data (and there is a lot, nearly 60,000 data points per unit!) and write a program to calculate all the data for us.

A few issues we discovered in our data collection.  We noticed that some of our data stopped in September (whhaaat?). Investigation into this revealed that our dataloggers were collecting data at too high of a rate (every 10 minutes) and the data capacity of the unit was exceeded and  the units stopped recording.  That seemed odd so we looked at our 2012 data and same thing - we just missed it last year.  Bugger!

So for the units that stopped we extrapolated the data from nearby units in a similar "zone" and re-calculated. We went back and did the same for the 2012 data.  

To make sure we do not have the issue again we re-visited every unit and re-set to collect data every 30 minutes (Thanks Volunteers!)  This solves the capacity issues, as well gives us way less data to sort through so makes interpretation easier as a bonus!  So with everything recalculated here is our growing degree numbers for 2012 and 2013.

Growing Degree Days (GDD)

Region	2011*	2012	2013
Nakusp	N/A	935	1074
Arrow Park	N/A	933	1059
Burton	N/A	1029	1139
Needles/Fauquier	N/A	1058	1144

 As a comparison Summerland BC for 2012 was 1333 GDD and 2013 was 1415 GDD.  

We also like to look at the Frost Free Days (FFD).  Frost occurs when the temperature of air falls below the freezing point of water (0 °C). This is usually measured at the height of 1 m above the ground surface. There is a rather subjective scale to show several degrees of frost severity:

·        slight frost: 0 to −2.0 °C

·        moderate frost: −2.1 to −6.5 °C

·        severe frost: −6.6 to −11.5 °C

·        very severe frost: below −11.5 °C

For our purposes we used “slight” frost as our parameter, using 0°C for our last spring frost and -2°C for our first fall frost.  Most grape varieties require approximately 140 FFD,  This was a change from 2012, so again we re-calculated the numbers.

Frost Free Days (FFD)

Region	2011*	2012	2013
Nakusp	N/A	148	170
Arrow Park	N/A	134	165
Burton	N/A	160	175
Needles/Fauquier	N/A	123	162

We also look at a few other parameter in the research plot.  While one year of data is not very representative, it is presented below. 

Location: 107 Burton Main Road	Min	Max	Average
Relative Humidity (%)	17.1	100	77.4
Solar Radiation (Watts/m2)	0.6	1147	157
Wind Speed (m/s)	0.0	4.03	1.2
Wind Direction	0.0	355.2	N/A
Leaf Wetness (%)	0.0	100	31

What doe sit all mean? The numbers for leaf wetness and relative humidity do suggest a wetter climate that could lead to moisture related diseases for some agriculture products (Surprise!).  In absence of wind aided drying, a higher attention to crop management would be required in these cases. 

The numbers for wind speed and wind direction suggest that the research plot is subject to winds that will provide some aid in drying canopies after rains, reducing the spread of moisture related disease or reducing extreme high temperatures and humidity (that is good!)

As very little information on solar radiation is available at this time, it is difficult to assess if the numbers are considered an asset to the growing product. (Stay tuned!)

So there it is.  If there are folks out there who read this and have one of our units on their property and want to see specific data on their site, post a comment back and we can look at getting it to you.

And oh, our Spring Workbee is April 19 at 9:00 AM if you can join us.

Next up: Spring pruning and winter damage.

Spring 2014

How the time flies!  Seems like we just wrapped up the vineyard for the winter and here it is nearing Spring already.  The vineyard seems to have survived the winter so far, although to be honest we have pretty much left it alone.

That does not mean we have not been busy.  There has been lots of meetings, funding applications submitted, discussion on when to prune and more importantly how hard to prune.  Vines that struggled or did not grow strong enough during year one will need to be pruned back to "2 buds" - essentially right back to the beginning.  Typically this is a result of the first year growth focused on root production instead of shoot production so our vines are not evenly grown or stunted.  We did have a number of varieties that grew quite well and we will start to train our first cordon and potentially let them fruit this year.  Very exciting!

We also have compiled our climate data from the 2013 data.  Overall 2013 was quite a bit better than 2012 with all regions seeing a significant bump in growing degree days and frost free days.  Details of this will be coming up in a future blog, so stay tuned.

Lastly, a little plug for a few upcoming events.

March 22 - ALGGS will be hosting a Red wine food pairing and tasting event in Burton.  This compliments the white wine event held last year and will be done just in time for the Rotary wine event.  Tickets will be available soon.

April 12 - ALGGS has been helping the Nakusp Rotary organize and deliver and wine tasting event.  This event will feature wine vendors from wineries of BC with approximately 16 wineries represented.  Tickets are going fast, so make sure you contact Rotary so you do not miss out.