Rain is very important at this time of year as the grapes are just beginning their race to maturity. But, it prevents mowing, tree removal, and even spraying of fungicides, insecticides, and nutrients. So, we’ll be happy to get some dry weather that will permit us to keep moving on other necessary projects.
Rain also fills up our waste water treatment lagoons and we need some dry weather to pump them down while moving water to our landscaping.
We got all of the petioles gathered and kept them refrigerated over the weekend. We sent them to the lab on Monday. The petioles were put in little brown bags that were labelled with the grape variety and the vineyard block from which they were collected.
We are making progress removing weeds from vineyards with weed eaters. Last week, we worked in the blocks where we’ve just planted our new vines. We are also suckering and tying up rows of LaCrosse at Maple Woods.
We moved the mower to Meadowcreek and mowed it this week and then started pulling trees in the vineyard. The ground is nice and soft so they come out easily.
Our Steuben vineyard is in pretty bad shape. Many of the vines have died above ground but the roots are sending up new suckers. We are training the suckers up onto the trellis and removing the old dead vines.
Finally, we still have a lot of trees in the Tassel Ridge Vineyard, especially at the north end. It looks more like a forest than a vineyard.
