We raised the grow tubes on the young vines we planted in June. This is the third time we have done that and it is to protect the tender apical shoots from deer predation. The deer think these shoots are the best salad they can think of!
We finished spraying the vineyards, took the harvester to Van Wall for servicing, and serviced both reefer trucks. We also started the mowing cycle again at Maple Woods vineyard and delivered macro bins to each vineyard.
We installed the hawk kites to scare off the birds that are attracted to the newly sweet grapes. We actually have several alternatives to minimize bird predation of our ripe grapes…and we’ve tried them all. The foolproof alternative is to net the vines. But, that is really expensive, mainly in precious personnel time to put the nets on and then take them off at the last minute before harvest. We have bird-call audio systems that the neighbors don’t particularly like. We also have propane cannons that are the least liked by the neighbors. Our hawk kites are silent but very frightening to the birds. The only better alternative would be to have a real falcon with its handler at each vineyard until harvest is done. You can imagine how expensive that would be.
Because rain was forecast, we pumped the lagoons. For the last time this season, we pulled up the grow tubes on the new vines and removed weeds in the rows. And, we moved the harvest carts out of the warehouse and washed out the macro bins.
