From Our Vineyard

We are getting ready to take advantage of nice weather and start machine pruning with our V-Mech System. With three people (one in the tractor and two in the V-Mech – it is officially the chariot!) we can machine prune a lot of vineyard quickly. Then, we

Our vineyard manager continues to finish-prune on nice days. Fortunately, we have had several nice days recently. He is also using a new berm sweeper to remove pruning debris and dead weeds from under the Marquette vines at Meadowcreek. This will allow the herbicide that we will

We are taking advantage of the warming trend to get back out into our Sabrevois blocks at Maple Woods Vineyards to do finish pruning. We rough pruned these vines in December. Both trucks and tractors are being fixed and we have been working on equipment in the

We took advantage of the improving weather to start rough pruning of our Marquette vines on Monday. We used our V-mech system in which two operators ride in the “chariot” behind a tractor. The tractor driver is comfortable with both heat and air conditioning. The two operators

We are continuing to work at Newport Lane Vineyard to remove the vines, posts, and trellis wires. We hope to have the two north vineyards removed by early December. We no longer need the grapes we have grown at Newport Lane and the farmer who owns the

We are removing an old vineyard at Newport Lane. We no longer need the varieties grown at this location (Frontenac, St. Pepin, and St. Croix) because we are growing them in one of our other three vineyards. The vines are old and are hard to maintain. This

The recent rain storms have softened up the ground so we can use our Weed Badger to get rows cleaned up so we can plant LaCrosse in the spring. The vines have gone dormant and the ground is now cool enough that we can apply pre-emergent herbicide

Although we have not had any overnight freezes yet in Mahaska County, our vines are showing signs that they think it is time to go dormant for the Winter. This is most evident with Steuben which is a labrusca vine native to New England. Leaves on these

We are continuing to tie up vines that have come loose from their trellis. The varieties include Petite Pearl, Itasca, Foch, Steuben, and Crimson Pearl. We are finishing spraying of fungicide at Tassel Ridge Vineyard and then we will clean up and put away the Hagie sprayer.