Inconvenient as it may be during harvest each year there is a seasonal opportunity that can help you improve your vineyards. Even though we are busy harvesting during this period it's important to capture the data for improvement in the upcoming season. What are these opportunities and how do we capture them?
A short window exists because the leaves are old enough to show everything that is wrong with a vine. It starts at about the 20th of September each year and lasts as long as the leaves are capable of holding on. It's important to collect the data before the leaves turn completely yellow or the basal leaves fall off the vine. All the parts of the vine tell the story of; how health am I.
Collecting the data doesn't mean that you need to write it down, put it in an excel sheet and make it look professional. That's what winter work is for. We just need to capture it in one place so it won't get lost. I personally prepare my inspection sheets for the year in the early Spring or Winter months and have them filed so that during harvest when things are hectic I just pull them out and go. In the best of scenarios I can actually capture the data on work sheets I've created and deal with them later. However, we are dealing with nature, even the best laid plans can have impromptu deadlines like an early frost and you need to capture your data very quickly. In these instances I use a florescent rattle can to mark the plants on the go with a quad in the vineyard and come back to write down the findings later when I have more time. The important part is getting the data or making it permanent in the vineyard to collect from later. It only happens once a year so if you really want to improve your vineyard quickly, it has to be done. Otherwise you'll kick yourself later and have to wait another year to even get started.
I have found the florescent rattle can to be the best form of marking in the vineyard personally. You can spray the plant and it will last throughout the winter and into late Spring. I use water-based as opposed to oil, the color fades within a year so for other types of marking and physical notes on your plants this is not the best option. There are only two types of marks that I make on a plant for the crew when they begin pruning the vineyard. One is a mark on the vertical portion of the trunk. This means leaf-roll or complete removal of the vine. The other is usually a stripe along the cordon and a perpendicular mark to indicate which part of the plant to cut off. I will highlight a tendril choke on young plants or crown gall on a single trunk. This is like writing instructions in the vineyards for your crew in advance. Another piece of advice which we have found very effective and its good winter work for the crew is to go through the blocks that have the heaviest markings and lay down some of this year growth/canes so that we don't waste another year growing a cane to use as a new cordon. This has to be do before pre-pruning so you can capture the saved time in the vineyard.
Non-Productive Vines. As in the the cover photo these vines have crashed at some point during a season. Sometimes this is just one arm of a cordon, one trunk or the whole plant. These things happen for various reasons and it's important to be unapatheitc and unapologetic towards them. As random and insignificant as they may seem its a game of attrition we as viticulturists can out pace. The math is simple; a plant carries about 10lbs of fruit per year each pound at a moderate price is worth 2 dollars. That's 20 dollars per plant. Last year alone in our vineyards we found 1000 plants out of 130,000 that needed some kind of repair or replacement. Thats 20,000 dollars.
Leaf-roll infected Vines. Contrary to many magazine shots, blog posts and Instagram photos about Fall vineyard colors, grape vines are supposed to turn yellow. There are only a couple varieties grown in the Northwest currently that are exceptions to that rule (and they turn orange). If there is red.... there is a problem, period. As we move forward in the wine industry towards more control and more quality on both the winemaking side and the vine growing side there will be more demand for clean plants. Clean plants are more predictable, have better phenolic structure and have better color. Roguing these vines every year does work and is efficient for young vineyards of 20 years or less with a 25% infection rate or less. If you wish to clean up a vineyard or keep one clean, study up on Sun-Tzu and you can make it. I'll write a post outlining a leaf roll battle tool kit and giving you some of my experience and results. They are awesome!
Old Vine Decline and Aging blocks. To be honest I still don't believe this even exists. I don't think anyone can say for sure, so I can't believe in it yet. There are 300 year old vines in Europe that are still kicking! These old blocks have had thousands of decisions made on them over the years and yet I rarely hear anyone managing an old block think in terms of what the plant has gone through. Its likely that and old vine will have had 5-10k decisions made upon it that affect the permanent structure of the vine over a 30 year period. With the old blocks I've worked with we've found that renewing cordons/trunks that are non-productive will regrow new and fresh cordons and be back to fruit production in no longer than the second season. And if these unproductive parts of the plants are marked in the vineyard each season when they become apparent, its entirely possible your vineyard will out live you and your children.
Are there any issues in vineyard management that you would like to hear about from me? Post a comment or send me an email/message and I'd be happy address anything that you find important in your vineyard or winery.