Our vineyard crew is making great progress with pruning. Some of our vineyards are best manually pruned while those at Tassel Ridge can be machine pruned. We will work on those vineyards this week. We will finish spraying the lime-sulfur treatment to trunks at Tassel Ridge and will also finish applying the pre-emergent herbicide at Tassel Ridge and Maple Woods vineyards. And, we have new vines at Maple Woods that we will be tying and pruning.
The ground temperatures have gotten high enough that all of our vines are moving sap up from their roots and through the trunks into the vines. Buds are forming almost everywhere. So, cold temperatures originally forecasted at 23°F on three nights this week are of great concern. When the buds are still very small, they are more resistant to cold than when they get large and are close to opening. Our buds right now are pretty small so maybe we will get lucky.
We have now finished pruning most of the vineyards except for Tassel Ridge, our biggest. With few exceptions, we have finished pruning St. Croix, Frontenac, St. Pepin, LaCrosse, and Brianna.
