From Our Vineyard

We made good progress with our Marquette vines but have a lot more to prune this week. We will take advantage of the good weather to make a first pass with the mechanical pruner and then return to manually pull out the longer canes and prune all

While some Iowa winters are relatively mild, others are particularly severe with lots of snow and more important, extremely low temperatures. The winter of 2021 is certainly one of the latter. So, not surprisingly, we frequently hear the question: How are the grapes doing? The short and

Our harvester needs a lot of work on the bow rods that shake the fruit off the vines. More accurately, the work is on the mechanism that supports the bow rods. Some parts are being replaced for the first time since we purchased the harvester in about

Work in Tassel Ridge vineyards came to a halt last week. Ground temperatures were so low that we could no longer remove Mulberry Trees without them snapping off at the ground. Unfortunately, a tree that snaps off just grows back….with vigor so we have to pull them

If we can get a windless day, we’ll finish spraying pre-emergent herbicide at Tassel Ridge vineyard. It is also time to blow out the irrigation system in the landscaping around the winery building at Tassel Ridge. We still have some Edelweiss vines to get cut off at

We expect to finish pulling mulberry trees in the Tassel Ridge vineyard this week. When the temperature is below freezing at night, we can only pull trees in the afternoon after it warms up because the trees snap off at the ground and we fail to get

With good weather forecast for this week, we expect to finish pulling the Mulberry trees at Tassel Ridge. We are almost done and finally, this vineyard block no longer looks like a young forest. We will also mow all vineyards. We will start our spraying of herbicide

We expect rain this week but weather permitting, we will continue pulling Mulberry trees at Tassel Ridge. Fortunately, the wet ground facilitates tree removal. We are also planning to continue cutting off Edelweiss and Marquette trunks at the ground so we can grow new trunks on those

At the beginning of last week, the leaves on many of the vines in our vineyards were bright yellow and had been yellow for a week or so. We’ve seen this before however this year, we saw more autumn color than ever before. Then, the nights got

The rain last week softened the ground enough that it became easier to remove Mulberry trees in A and B Blocks at Tassel Ridge Vineyard. One team is removing trees and the other is cutting off the Edelweiss as we get ready to bring up new trunks