We have blocs of one year-old Brianna, Crimson Pearl, and Petite Pearl at Tassel Ridge that are now almost up to the top wire. We tie them to the pencil rod to assure that their trunks grow straight. This is not just to make them look pretty however. They will need to have straight trunks if we are going to be able to use our mechanical pruner in the future. The St. Croix at Tassel Ridge is mature but it needs to be re-tied and the suckers removed.
We are removing leaves on some of the recently hedged Marquette. This is an experiment to see if fruit that is more exposed to the sun has lower acid and better phenolics at harvest. We are using our Collard Leaf Thinner that literally blows jets of air that shreds the leaves but does no damage to the fruit.
We will be applying herbicide in some parts of the Tassel Ridge vineyard to control weeds. And, time and weather permitting, we will apply fungicide at Tassel Ridge.
Finally, we’ll start removing the trunks on four rows of mature Edelweiss. This will generate vigorous suckers to grow up and we will select the best of these suckers to become new trunks. We will lose our harvest in these four rows this year but we should get a harvest next year and have vigorous new trunks and arms.
