From Our Vineyard

Our vines have budded out and leaves are beginning to turn what was a gray-brown scene into one with spots of green. Because the young buds are freeze-intolerant, we are watching the weather carefully. And, we have had to stop using our mechanical pruner because it will

Bud break is an important threshold each spring as the vines wake up from their winter slumber. Because the buds are very tender, freezing temperatures, even for 4–5 hours, will kill the buds and set the vines back for weeks. Buds have started to swell on most

We were really moving right along with mechanical pruning when the PTO Drive shaft on our V-Mech Mechanical pruner broke on Monday, April 6. We immediately ordered a new one but the supplier shipped the wrong part and we had to try again. It is supposed to

Last week, we pruned the Marquette and La Crescent at Meadowcreek Vineyards. That totaled about ten acres. We then moved the equipment to Tassel Ridge and pruned vines in the northwest corner of the vineyard including Brianna, Petite Pearl, and mostly Edelweiss. We are now working in

We enjoyed good weather and were focused on mechanical pruning this week. As of Wednesday mid-day, the vineyard team had mechanically pruned the Marquette and the La Crescent vineyards which total about ten acres. Each day, we finish pruning by early afternoon and we then return to

Last week, we got tractors fixed and ready for vineyard work. We will be ordering fertilizer, fungicide, and other chemicals. And, as soon as it dries out, we will start mechanical pruning. Every day, after mechanical pruning, we will spray the vines we pruned with Spurshield®, a polymeric material

The warming weather and the long-range forecast for warmer than usual weather for the next six weeks means that we will begin machine pruning very soon. We need at least two people and preferably three people to machine prune. We will prune one day and spray Spur

The soils in our Tassel Ridge Vineyard at the Winery are a mix of loess and loam with pockets of clay. Loess is a sandy windblown soil that drains well and when combined with the loam, we have well-drained, rich soils. The loess soils blew in from

While the vines are sound asleep, we are getting ready for pruning, spraying, and fertilizing. And, we are keeping our eyes on the temperatures. While the vines are fully dormant, they are still sensitive to major drops in air temperatures. It is as though they have temperature

We have plenty of equipment that requires annual servicing and with the vineyard now snow covered, we are using our equipment sheds to get everything ready for pruning and fertilizing in the spring. Last week, we talked about the survivability of our cold-climate grapevines when it is