All systems go.

A little bit later than last year, but no too much, the Cabernet sauvignon vines are beginning to go through budbreak.  That's it, all of Vinoland's vines now have some green-stuff going on.  In fact, the white grapes are at the stage were I need to start suckering the trunks.  It's always something. 
Go Cab, go!

Fuzzy wuzzy.

Somewhere in this photograph, amongst all that sucker-y nonsense, is a Pinot grigio vine.  Yup, left to their own devices, whilst I concentrated on taming the weeds in the greater Vinoland area, the PG vines have produced suckers upon suckers.  I kid not: I have never seen such fuzzy goings-on.  Same is happening in the Syrah vines, living proof that there is plenty of soil moisture for such vegetative-exuberance.  So I suppose I have my entire weekend planned out for me.  Sucker on.

Working Hard?

Or hardly working?  The Pinot grigio vines are hard at work blooming right now.  The weather this week has been perfect for bloom, warm, dry and not very windy - should be a good fruit-set. I was working moderately hard at stuffing shoots and suckering the grapevines when I noticed bloom had begun.  Meanwhile, Vinodog 2 was working hard at finding any shady spot in the vineyard where she could comfortably nap, (whilst still keeping an eye on me, of course). Workers, and nappers, of the world unite.  Happy May Day.

Keeping a clear head.

It is hard to tell from this photograph exactly what is going on in the head of this young Pinot grigio vine, it's all a bit of a mess - and that's the point.  The vines have gotten off to a great start for 2015, but that means an awful lot of adventitious buds have developed in places I didn't intend on them appearing.  Hate when that happens.  These adventitious buds, which generally form on older wood, are sometimes called non-count shoots.  Humph, well they count for something because they generally mean a bit more extra work for me in the vineyard.  So that is what I did today, thinned out the heads of the Pinot grigio (and suckered the trunks).

One should generally start to perform shoot-thinning when shoots are about 4 inches long, waiting any longer means that the base of these extra shoots may have started to lignify making removal a little more difficult. Canopy management is very important, even at this early stage in the year, as it allows more sulphur (spray) to penetrate the canopy to safeguard against powdery mildew infection.  So a sunny, California Sunday afternoon was spent thinning and clearing out heads.  

Next up, the Syrah vines.

Balloon over Napa.

I've been back in Vinoland a week already.  The time has flown by.  My first morning back I was interrupted, whilst unpacking, by a hot air balloon that floated over the southern end of Vinoland...you're not on Merseyside anymore Vinogirl.  Sigh!
All my spare time has been spent in the vineyard catching up on a fortnight's worth of shoot-stuffing and trunk-suckering.  Fruit set looks good so far, especially in the Pinot grigio.  The Cabernet Sauvignon is perhaps only 70% through flowering, but everything looks like it's going according to plan.  2013 is looking like it maybe another excellent vintage. 

Hello suckers!

I'm back!
Whilst I was on holiday it seems there was some extra-curricular, shoot goings-on in the vineyard. Can't a Vinogirl go away for almost 3 weeks without some viticultural skulduggery taking place in her absence? Seems not.
Not to worry, all the vines will be whipped back into shape over the coming weekend. Bye-bye suckers!

Ladybird, ladybird...

The past two days were spent suckering and thinning shoots. It's quite a fun task. I got to see each vine up close and personal. It gave me an opportunity to check for frost damage which, I am pleased to report, there is almost none of. A few of the bench grafts, that were cut down to two buds, are showing some damage on the leaves that were just beginning to peek out of their milk cartons. Otherwise everything else seems fine.
The Pinot gris vines are pushing out every possible bud they can...they look like Chia pets! Well, they did before I went through and put a stop to their vigorous little game. It took quite a while but now there are actually spaces between the shoots. I am thinking they are wanting to be infected with powdery mildew.
One thing I did notice is that there hundreds of ladybird (Coccinellidae) larvae all over the vineyard. This bodes well for my grape pest management programme, which consists of hoping I have all the good insects for vines...and none of the bad ones. The larvae in the picture is quite advanced, she'll be hatching anytime soon. The sheer number of ladybirds, at every stage right now, reminded me of the plague of ladybirds we had in England in 1976. That was a crunchy summer indeed!