Starting Grape Cutting - update

 So we started the cuttings outside at the beginning of May..see the link to the earlier blog. The cuttings leafed out and were growing well but we had a nasty frost and several of the new buds got damaged.

What surprised me was how the cuttings kept pushing more secondary buds and the vines have lots of leaves popping. 

Checking to see if there is root development and the Foch is looking great (photo). I expect yge others are doing well too. 

Once those roots get to be about 3-4 inches, the shoots will really start to grow and they will be well on thier way. With any luck we'll get those new vines out into the vineyard by the end of July.

First Signs of Flowering

 From cold May to warm June and just like that the vines have caught up to where they should be and are on track for bloom in the last week of June.

Some flowers clusters show signs of bloom on the way with an occasional single flower in bloom - like the Marechal Foch seen here. Most are 7-14 days away to bloom yet.

The growth has been strong and significant rain in June which is good as the long range forcast looks like hot and dry weather on the way.

Secondary Buds Are Fruitful

So I mentioned in the last blog about the frost we had. It killed alot of the crop we had comming - thank goodness we dont get those very often.

Often what happens after that primary bud is killed by the frost is that the secondary bud grows. In fact even with out a frost its common for many varieties to push out both the primary and secondary buds which turn into 2 shoots from the same node.

This is where crop adjustment happens and if you have both the primary and secondary bud growing into shoots then you go along the rows and pull off all those secondaries.

Generally speaking the secondary buds are not fruitful but some varieties, particularly the hybrids, often have fruitful secondary buds. That is worth noting is the capacity of some vines to still produce a crop on the secondary buds.

Usually the crop is much smaller on secondary buds but its better than nothing. This is one thing I like about the hybrids we grow. Lots of them can produce a decent crop on the secondary bud. The photo above is L'Acadie Blanc and you can see the primary bud/shoot died from the frost but the secondary is growing and fruitful with two visible flower clusters. Its a bit behind where we should be for growth but there is lots of time to catch up.

Foch and Leon Millot will produce on secondary buds as well. 

Vines Are Leafing Out

So its been a cool May again, like 2020 but colder, and with frost and the vines have been slower to leaf out but they are coming along. We had a week of warm weather starting the end of may into June and that really brought the vines growing. The L'Acadie Blanc was among the earliest to bud out and leaf out which is rather remarkable as in years gone by they are no earlier than other varieties. Photo from June 5th. L'Acadie also suffered some frost damage, but about the same as the other varieties.

It may be that L'Acadie have the propensity to bud out in soil temperatures that are a bit cooler than the other varieties and with the cool May, the soil has stayed a bit cooler than usual - slowing the budding of other varieties like Marechal Foch and Petite Milo but yet warm enough to start the L'Acadie to push buds.

Just 1 or 2 degrees in soil temperature can make the difference. Several years back we had dozens of Leon Millot plants potted that were dormant and on shelves stored for the winter in our machine shed. In the spring as the temperature warmed up the vines on the top self at about 6' high started to push buds while none of the vines on the bottom shelf were showing any signs of pushing buds. It was quite remarkable to see as there was only a few degrees difference in the temperature from 1' off the ground to 6' off the ground on the shelves, but enough to warm the soil enough to get the top vines active.

Regardless we are in June now and all varieties are leafed out and catching up to L'Acadie. At this point we can start to gauge the crop potential based on the flower clusters observed.

But this is just speculation, we really wont get a solid picture of what the crop may be until early-mid July which is after flowering and fruit set. 

Cold Start and Frost in May

 So with the month of May behind us we are hoping for some serious heat in June. May was really cool and everything is delayed by a week right now. In the last 10 years we would usually record a temperature of about 13c to 13.5c and that gets the vines leafing out by the last week of May.  

This May we recorded an average temperature of  12.0 and we had a late spring frost too of -2 on May 19.  There were records broken from cold temperatures all over and even Penticton recorded -1. As the vines were delayed a bit not all was lost but the frost still killed off alot of the primary buds. The secondary buds didnt get damaged and are pushing and there is some flower clusters there too but not the size or amount that exists on the primary buds. These secondary buds are also delayed and should be at the 5-6 leaf stage right now, but we have to leave most of them as replacement canes witch will become spurs at the next pruning. Last time we had a late spring frost like this was about 11 years ago and was -1 and really didn't cause much damage - so this time its an anomaly.

The crop will be smaller this year but already this starts to set things up for something interesting. Fewer buds and canes transfers more growth to those remaining canes and flower clusters - and its events like these that set one vintage apart from another.

Hoping now for a warm June and the flowering to happen before July as this would bring the progress back on track. We've had some high heat in late May and entering June and the vines are almost back on track.

"I am Groot" - Bulk Grape Vine Propagation

We propagate about 50-75 vines each year and depending on the variety we get up to 90% propagation rate to as low as 30%. This year we have a challenge. We are expanding our vineyard and we ordered hundreds of vines from a commercial vine supplier in Ontario only to find out that they went bankrupt, or were sold the other large commercial vine supplier, or we don't really know because their phones don't work, no email response, no one to tell us if we will get our deposit back for the order we placed (we highly doubt it).

So what can we do - well, if you've seen the Marvel movie "Guardians of the Galaxy" then you know about re-growing a plant. You are probably also familiar with the line "I am Groot" delivered by the tree-like character named Groot. (seen at left with co-star Rocket the Racoon). In this movie Groot gets smashed to a hundred pieces of wood after the space ship they were in crashed, but they re-grow Groot from a stick fragment. From the perspective of someone who grows grapes, I was most curious about the propagation of what was left of Groot after they crashed in the space ship.

Seemingly, all that was required to re-grow Groot was to take a stick fragment of the former Groot and stick it into a pot with soil and before

long the stick will grow (photo at right). Particularly interesting as that is the same way one can propagate grape vines - you take a healthy cutting of one of the canes from the grape vine, stick it in a pot of soil and watch it grow. Of course you need to keep it watered and give it sunlight but that will pretty much do it.

So we are growing our own vines this year, about 1500 of them, and enough for nearly 2 acres. Looks like an entire army of Groots. So far so good, the cuttings are budding out nicely, but they almost always bud out nicely at the start. Its the next stage of forming the roots that the vines can fail. We try to help that along by dipping the soil end of the cutting in rooting hormone to help stimulate the growth.

We have lots of buds starting to push out on our "Groot" vines (Marechal Foch seen at left) and they should be leafing out soon.

We've blogged about how to grow grape vines from cuttings before so here is the link. Growing Grape Vines Form Cuttings

Row Cover Clover

So since 2008 we've plowed between the rows to eliminate weeds and provide more soil moisture for the vines. The soil is both sandy and low in nutrients so it holds little moisture and provides little nutrients to the vines. Yet the vines grow, albiet slower than what one may expect and takes 6-7 years to reach full maturity.

Now that the vines are fully established we are seeding clover in ever second row. We started this last year and this spring it is coming up great and so now we are continuing with planting the clover in the rest of the vineyard. The clover will help to build the soil over the years yet it will consume alot of soil moisture. However now that the vines are mature with full and deep root systems they are less prone to soil water deficiency. In fact, over the past few years the vast majority of or vineyard has really not received any irrigation. 

There are a few things at play here here that help us eliminate the need to irrigate. 

• Once the vines are mature, about 6 years old, they've developed a significant and deep root system that supplies their needs. 
• Second, while we usually dont get any rain from early July to the end of August, our season is short, about 150 days/5 months long, so we dont have extremely long and extended periods without rain. In relation to this the snow usually doesn't finish melting until early April and its only 3-4 weeks later the vines are budding out. In contrast, varieties that take 180 days/6 months to ripen would suffer if in that extra month of drough was not replenished with irrigation or rainfall.
• Third, we leave extra spacing between the rows, while limiting production, so this give a larger area for each vine to draw water from.
• It is not uncommon to get cool summer evenings that result in precipitation of significant dew on the leaves and even the soil that help replenish some moisture. We blogged about that previously see link Moisture From Air
• We usually get sporadic rains in May and June and the soil is still flush with moisture until mid July and then it starts to deplete. There is usually enough weter in the soil and from rain to fill out the grapes and then by the end of August, early September its pretty dry but in time for reducing soil moisture content heading into harvest.

The clover will consume some of that valuable moisture but now that the vines are mature they can handle these conditions without irrigation and the clover will serve well to build the soil over time and provides a great habitat for bees.

Buds Starting To Push

Temperature changed quickly in March and April has been warm but still snow pack in the mountains and cold nights brings the fog and mist into the trees around the vineyard.

We had a -24c event overnight in early February. Its the second coldest temperature we've recorded since we started recording temperatures in 2008. Coldest wever ever had is -25c in 2008.

For alot of clasic grape types like cabernet, -23c is a dangerous temperature as the buds will die at that temperature. Our vines are hybrids and can withstand temperatures much cooler. 

Leon Millot is probably the least cold toletant but still withstands -27c easily or colder. Petite Milo, Castel and Evangeline are similar but Marechal Foch and L'Acadie Blanc tolerate cold in the -30c neighborhood.

So this time of year starts to give indication if there was any cold damage. Its exciting as its the first look at what the year might be and so far so good buds look healthy and all varieties are pushing out. 

Spring 2021

 Just a weeks ago we were 1 foot deep in hard pack snow and then the sun pokes holes in a few places and a week later the snow is gone. Still lots of snow in the mountains but the valleys are greening up.

It happens so fast and we are doing some pruning still and how remarkably quick the soil heats up and the pruning tips start bleeding sap.

Generally it was a warm winter but we did get a low of -24.5 c in February. That makes this winter low the second coldest weve recorded in 13 years.

Nice to see the canes look good for the most part, healthy green and centres. Remarkably the pinot noir looks really good and on par with the likes of leon millot.

Cutting into some buds they look pretty good too. The real test comes in about a month when the buds start to push and then we'll see if there is any damage.

 

Clearing the Land - Continued

So there are little and big things that impact business. This year we were clearing land for new vines and we needed re-stack and burn up the remnants of bush piles that we clearing in spring 2019 (see link) and first burned in January 2020. By mid-April, the piles had no more snow on them but there was still snow on the ground and in among the trees. This was a perfect time to burn the remaining trees and bush that did not completely burn in January...but this was going to have to wait.

Unfortunately and despite the snow on the ground, as of mid-April there was a ban on burning certain sizes of burn piles and this included what we needed to burn up. So this halted our ability to completely clear the land at that time. This is very unusual and we have not seen a ban this early in our time. Interestingly, and what was a remarkable decision given the forest fire danger, the ban was reversed in Mid-June to allow for large open fires when there was apparent significant fire danger/hazard. 

Given the potential for forest fire which is a common summer time event in our area, we chose not to burn in June and left the piles over the summer and we have just burned them up in November.  Its a messy job to pile and re-pile logs that are partially burnt up but eventually the bulk of the piles is gone leaving only the largest stumps and trunks.

We'll likely dig a pit in the spring and bury the stumps and trunks and we'll be ready for planting this area in summer 2021.