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)