Our Edelweiss has produced a weak harvest for the past two years and it appears that the number of older vines in blocks A & B of the vineyard is part of the problem. Many of these vines have just one arm, others have died and haven’t been replaced, and some are diseased. In block A, we are cutting trunks off at the ground and sealing up the wound with a liquid “Bandaid” to prevent fungus from entering the wound. We will lose all production next year from these vines but we will train up one or two new trunks next year and these will produce fruit in 2022. We will also be removing the Mulberry trees from at least Block A. Our rain last weekend will make this job much easier.
Our trellis posts have a finite life because after 10–12 years they rot off at the ground in spite of being pressure treated. So, after each harvest, we have to dig out the damaged posts and replace them with new posts. This is a time-consuming job for a crew of two people. Last week, the broken posts were replaced at Maple Woods Vineyard and this week we will work on posts at Newport Lane Vineyard.
We will also be spraying fungicide if we get a day with no wind.
And, we will start pumping the lagoons and applying the treated water to the landscape. We will remove water from the lagoons now so that when it rains or snows later in the fall and winter, we’ll have enough space in the lagoons for process water and the little bit of run-off that gets into the lagoons.
