First Harvest

January 22, 2014

Pinot noir 828 faired quite well in its 2nd year.  The vines in both cases (rootstocks Rg and 3309) reached the top wire. This year they will have an half of a crop,as it will be their 3rd year. The Pinot noir clone 115 that did have a 50% crop this past year was of a very good quality despite the 221 mm or 8.85 inches of rain during bloom.

The canes of the Pinot noir are 5/16 diameter and have 4 inch internodes and are very healthy, the canes have hardened off very well and are reddish-brown all the way up to the end of the cane.

The Chardonnay's were in their 3rd year as well, they've hardened off nicely and had a half of a crop too.

The canes are a larger diameter than I'd like to see but, that isn't unusual as it was only their 3rd year.

On average the cane growth is even, the vines all look the same which is good(uniformity) ,some canes are 1/2 inch in diameter but that will work itself out next year when they are fully cropped.

There was a little bit of necrosis in the middle of the cane on some vines but not enough to be concerned about, at least at this point but I will keep an eye on that.

All in all it was a good crop in a very challenging year, it was a wet year with a dry spell in

August. Thankfully October was one of the nicest October's that we've ever had and the crop turned out to be very good. The internodes of the canes on the Chardonnay's are for the most part 4 inches which is ideal. Even the bull wood has internodes that are reasonably short, about 5 inches long this is notable due to the wet year as well as the fact that it is also the 3^rd year. 

This year(2014) will be an important year, as it will be the first year that some of the rows will have a full crop and we will get to see what the effects of an exceptionally well drained site will have on the vines and just how large a crop they will be able to carry.

I am guessing at about 2 1/4 to 2 1/2 tonnes per acre is what they will carry without being over cropped.

Irrigation is a definite possibility which is kind of funny when you consider we're in North Eastern North America. During the early 90's we had a period of 3 years where we had drought conditions, so we know that these conditions can and will appear again. The use of drip line irrigation would be the best choice, as overhead sprinklers would be more trouble than there worth because mildews are already a big problem here, overhead sprinklers may add to the mildews by keeping the leaves of the vines moist or wet. There is no need to encourage diseases like downy and powdery mildew, they can come along just fine without any assistance from us.

           

January 2014

It has been quite some time since I've updated this blog, so I will try to catch up on what has been going on.

2013 was a difficult year with 8.85 inches or 221.25 mm of rain during bloom and 39.025 inches or 975.625 mm over all which was the second highest rainfall since 2002 with 2011 being the highest at 40.03 inches or 1000.75 mm.

With that much rain during bloom diseases like Black rot, Downy Mildew, Botrytis would run rampant and they did with the exception of Botrytis which was a problem in some places, fortunately not here. I was able to get ahead of the diseases this year and a number of sprays later there was very little sign of disease in the vineyard. A few vines at the end of the season showed downy mildew even after 10 sprays. 

Overall though, the crop was good, it was small(50% crop as it was only year 3) the quality of the Chardonnay was good and the quality of the Pinot noir was excellent, no disease and fully matured(at least by Nova Scotia standards)

I changed my mind about using the vertically divided system Scott Henry when I was visiting a friend Michael Lightfoot in Wolfville NS, Mike showed me a new trellising system he was using on his New York Muscat ( which is a low cropper and a vigorous grower) it is a type of "Kniffen " I don't know what it is called (I didn't ask) it isn't a 4 arm Kniffen it is more like a "Modified Kniffen". 

It was doing exactly what he wanted an increase in the crop with a decrease in the amount of vegetative growth, the internodes were 4 inches in length which is very good, and for NY Muscat that is an accomplishment (kudos to Mike for thinking outside the box)

The second thing I noticed was that both sets of cordons were vertically trained, this is a tremendous advantage as "Scott Henry" has 1 set of cordons trained vertically and 1 set of cordons trained downwards. Training a cordon downwards is devigorating so to get the same quality as the vertically trained cordon you should retain fewer buds. The fact that there are 4 vertically trained cordons means you can carry more buds/nodes and have a slightly larger crop per acre than you can with a Scott Henry. (if you so choose to do so) 

Because you can carry a larger crop it also gives you the leeway to reduce the crop by cluster thinning to increase fruit quality and still make it affordable to do so from the vineyard point of view. You can remove the cluster's shoulders/wings to increase quality as well, though this may prove to be too labour intensive.

Anyway, when I saw what Mike was doing I recognized it as a superior trellising system ( in my opinion) to Scott Henry.

I tried to tie down Chardonnay canes downward when the canes were about 10-12 inches or 250-300 mm long but the all broke off and seemed to resist being tied downward, that was when I decided to change trellising systems.

Modified Kniffen Trellising system

Chardonnay95 on S04 foreground,3309 background

  
 
The first fruiting wire on the Modified Kniffen is at 24 inches and the 2nd one is at 72 inches, which gives 48 inches per canopy. Each of these rows will have a 50% for this year (they had no crop last year) the reason for this is because it is a divided system and it will take an extra year to develop a root system large enough to support the extra canopy. (at least I hope it will only take 1 extra year)

Chardonnay 95 on S04 (VSP) year 3

Chardonnay 548 on S04 year 3

Pinot noir 828 on Riparia Glorie year 2

Pinot noir 115 on S04 year 3

      
There are 2 different clones of Pinot noir on 3 different root stocks. Clones 115 and 828 on root stocks Riparia Glorie, 3309 and S04. 

The purpose of these tests are to find the best possible combination before I plant the rest of the vineyard, before I plant the rest of the vineyard I must first cut down the trees on the west side of the field (see photo) The other fields also have a high organic matter content, with similar soil structure so this test will be informative (I hope)