From Our Vineyard

We are making good progress this week in pruning Marquette. This is a nice acre vineyard so we have a lot of vines to attend to. We did the actual pruning in late November with our tow-behind V-Mech pruner. Although it takes two people in the V-Mech

We took advantage of warm weather back in early December and took the V-Mech pruning system out into the Marquette vineyard to start our seasonal pruning. While we were able to cut the long canes, some canes are so long that they stay in the vine canopy.

One of the tasks that takes a lot of our vineyard crew’s time is removal of the large and growing number of Mulberry trees that start to grow each season. They grow fast and have a tap root that must come out because otherwise, it will regrow

Our vineyard crew will take advantage of the good weather to mechanically prune select varieties in all four vineyards. We early prune grape varieties that are least likely to bud out early when temperatures warm up in April. They include St. Croix, Frontenac, Sabrevois, and Brianna. After

We started this week working on the Marquette trellis in unusually nice weather for December. When we were pruning the Marquette, it was clear that the trellis really needed some attention. We needed to fix some wires that had broken, replace staples that had pulled out, and

The vineyard crew started mechanical pruning of our Marquette vines with the mechanized sprawl pruner. This takes three people with one person driving the tractor that pulls the V-mech mechanical platform and two people in the V-mech. One person prunes the right hand row while the other

The vineyard crew is finishing replacing broken posts and removing Mulberry trees at Meadowcreek Vineyard this week. If they get done before the end of the week, they will move to Tassel Ridge Vineyard where we have lots of trees to remove. Now that the ground temperature

Our vines are welcoming the rain but they are all getting ready for a long winter’s sleep. The leaves are getting both darker and in some varieties more yellow, but are still hanging on. A couple of cold nights below 32°F and a windy day will leave

Removing Mulberry Trees in the vineyard is challenging because they have to be pulled by the roots. So, damp ground makes it all much easier. While we are pulling Mulberry trees, if we encounter a post that has rotted off at the ground, we will dig it

The recent rain storms have softened the ground and are making it easier to remove broken posts and Mulberry Trees. We are taking full advantage of the moist ground and are making steady progress with both posts and trees. We have used our rainy days to get