Mid November

After a dry summer it was an especially wet fall so far. September and October saw a lot of rain over 10 inches or 250mm. The vines did very well this year all made it to the top wire, next year the vines will produce a half (50%) of a crop, that way the "extra energy" will go into root production. The plants have hardened off nicely as you can see in the following pics by looking at the brown/red coloured canes which indicates a cane that is prepared for the coming winter.

Pinot Noir clone 828 prepared for the winter

Chardonnay 548 ready for winter

Soil will be added to cover the graft union for the winter

New section added onto the vineyard

The only thing left to do now is to add topsoil to cover the graft union for the winter as an added layer of protection in case we get a  severe winter. This is done especially in the first few years to protect the graft while the graft union both heals and matures, eventually a grape hoe ( a mechanical hoe) will be used to cover the graft up with soil for the winter, although the primary use of a hoe is to control weeds it can be used to hill up the plants with top soil too.

The new site which is north of the vineyard is a small addition triangular in shape, for the purpose of using up as much of the field as possible. The addition will extend 6 rows  4 rows of chardonnay 548 and 2 rows Pinot noir 828. The stake in the above picture is the location of the endpost.  

That's all for now I'll add something a little later after I mound up the vines with soil, I will also include a rainfall total from my 2 rain gauges.

It is late August the vines are doing very well in their second year and are now 6 feet tall. It has been very dry this summer with a total rainfall of 331.5mm or 13.26 inches. as of August 19/12. Grapes actually appreciate this quite a bit(so do blueberries) it should be a very good harvest this year, perhaps better than 2010, we'll have to see, 2010 was a great year too.
  
I have a number of photos to upload (7)that I've taken in the last 2-3 days  

Pinot Noir clone # 115 on the rootstock SO4 about 6-7 feet tall.
All fruit has been removed to put all the energy into root growth. 

Chardonnay clone # 95 on the left
 Chardonnay clone # 548 on the right
 both rows have the same rootstocks SO4 and 3309.  



More Chardonnay, clone # 95 is on the left
and 548 is on the right.
Rootstock too are the same, 3309 at this end, and SO4 at the far end. 

 The next 2 photos are of the little jig I built for laying out the trellis wire. Quite simple, and it's attached to the pallet on the tractor using screws.

The next photo is a close up of the clips I'm using to attach the vineyard wire to the wooden posts. These clips work very nicely and when you use screws you can adjust them at your pleasure.

The last photo is of the trellis system called Scott Henry it is a vertically divided system an upper canopy and a lower canopy. I changed my mind after I installed the posts I was planning on using a horizontally divided system called Lyre but eventually decided on Scott Henry as it doesn't take up quite as much space. That is why you see post extensions instead of a single12 foot tall post. 

The height of the top wire is about 8 feet tall.

 While I'm at it I will add one more photo here is a pic of the back of the house

That's all for now I will update again sooner or maybe later??

July 12/ 2012

It has been quite a while since I said anything. The weather has been very nice all spring/summer so far. During June and all of July so far it has been warm and sunny great weather for the grape vines and not to bad for us either ( I'm trying not to complain about how hot it is because winter is coming and I will be complaining about how cold it is.)

Lately it has been 25- 29 degrees Celsius which is about 78-85F It really isn't the heat of course it is the high humidity which often gets 50 -70% and sometimes higher.

Back to the vineyard,

The vines are in the their 2 year of growth and have just about reached the top wire standing about 6 feet tall. All the leaves are clean, free of disease(so far) and look great.

It took me 7 hours to remove all the clusters on the vines this spring which surprised me, I wasn't expecting so many clusters to form in the second year of growth. The reason for removing the clusters is to put as much growth into the root system as possible to make a strong and healthy root system that will support the plant for many years to come.

here's a pic of  some of the vines

   

   and another one

well, that's all for now, see you next time

The weather has been quite nice this month, it looks like spring has finally come. I was in the vineyard last week to check the progress of bud development and thankfully they were still hard and firm.This week I checked the vineyard and there has been some 'movement,' the buds are still firm but they are beginning to soften, I will still keep to my schedule of beginning pruning the last week of March in the hopes of slowing down bud break ( hope in vain I think, but such is farming, always hoping for a better year)

This past winter was mild so I think it won't take much to get the vines moving (whether that has any effect on the deacclimation process of vines waking up after a 'long winter' I don't know but it sure sounds reasonable) 

Hopefully the old adage rings true "Early to bed, early to rise"  because the vines stayed up late last fall, so i'm hoping they'll be a little slow out of the gate. We can (not always) get a late frost about the first week of May so i'll leave lots of spare parts just in case.   

This photo was taken about 3 weeks ago. The circular thermometer
isn't part of the Stevenson Screen

This is a Stevenson Screen (above) that is in my vineyard. The 3 gauges (that are hanging)are in Fahrenheit. One records the minimum temperature, one the maximum temperature, and one records the current temperature. Now everything is Celsius and digital, but, until I go digital, this will do nicely, the recordings are very accurate.
   

I haven't started pruning yet (this will be year 2 for the vines) I'll wait until the end of the month to prune both here in my vineyard and at the vineyard where I work. This has been an unusually mild winter just about everywhere and when you're growing viniferas, especially in Nova Scotia it is always best to wait until April to prune (or at least the last week of March) by that time the weather is getting a little more 'stable'. (sort of) While we're pruning we leave lots of spare parts like kicker canes (extra canes) and renewal spurs just in case we get a late frost, which seems to like to come in early to mid May, when it does (like it did on May 12/2010) it does a lot of damage.


Last year 2011 was wet and cool just like everywhere else from New York to California and from Nova Scotia to British Columbia. In spite of this we had a great crop of Chardonnay that hung on late (due to the cool weather).


The total rainfall here at the farm was 1000.75mm from April to December 2011 


I will add another pic from the vineyard here at the farm taken Nov29/11

Chardonnay 95 on SO4 on the right in row 1 
Chardonnay 548 on SO4 on the left in row 2

        

March 5 2012,

 .

A little snow has fallen here last night (about 5-7 cm) at Granville Beach, Annapolis County in Nova Scotia's Annapolis Valley. At 4 degrees Celsius above zero the snow was almost all gone by noon.


The "North Mountain" ( a local name, is actually a hill that rises about 400-600 feet above sea level) makes a nice back drop for this photo. 

The vineyard was established in the spring of 2011, on Mother's Day to be exact (May8). All the posts were previously installed, the holes were dug, all that was left was to plant the vines. My family generously agreed to come down (from Halifax, NS) and help plant the grape vines, and with 7 of us ( 3 sisters,1 brother 2 brother-in-laws and me) it didn't take long to plant 350 vines, 3 hours actually. (50 Pinot Noir 828's are coming this spring)

This initial planting is a 'test block' and is 1/2 - 2/3 an acre in size. There will be 3 different trellis systems(Scott Henry,Smart Dyson and VSP) and 5 different vine spacings (30",3',4',5',6')The idea is to control vine balance, and/or the expected excessive growth with too many leaves and not enough fruit which seems to be the biggest problem in Nova Scotia due to its cool/cold climate ( at least as far as I'm concerned it is). 

The best time to do this is when you first plant the vineyard by using an appropriate trellising system to suit your site,rootstock,plant spacing... (well… it sure works in theory and even on paper) rather than trying to figure out how to manage excessive growth after you've planted, which are usually 'band-aid' solutions.

The vines are Chardonnay clones 548 and 95 both on 3309 and SO4 rootstocks and
Because I like a challenge: 
  
Pinot Noir 115 on SO4
and coming this spring
Pinot 828 on 3309 and Riparia Glorie 


It will be interesting to see what happens. The vineyard where I work (just up the road) has been growing Chardonnay and Riesling successfully for 10 years now, here in this area, they grow very well and winter over nicely too. 


Here's a few pics of my vineyard.

same view as the 2 above pics looking north

photo taken summer 2011

same view as above taken March 5/12

6 rows of metal posts and 6 rows of wooden posts
rows are 10 feet apart

Chardonnay 548 on SO4 rootstock taken Nov 2011
plant is identified as 8D1 (row8,post D, plant #1)
this way I can track each plants progress

Pinot Noir 115 on SO4 rootstock plant 11B2
photo taken Nov2011

vines were mounded up with sifted compost late Nov 2011

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view overlooking the Annapolis River in the distance

view from the highway looking back at the house

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old apple orchard, site of a future expansion

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old orchard site about 4.5 acres plantable area