Drip, drop, dribble.

I spent the entire day up close and personal with every single vine in Vinoland.  Tomorrow the vineyard is being sulphured so I needed to get all the shoots stuffed up under the trellis.  I also spent some time removing some laterals in the fruit zone.  Wow, there seems to be plenty of extra vigour this season.  All that surplus greenery just gets in the way of where the sulphur needs to go, so it was, "Off with their heads!"  It's okay, they don't feel a thing.
The vines also got their first watering of the year.  That meant checking every emitter, two for each vine, to make sure that they weren't clogged up with gunk.  All in all not bad, only a handful needed to be replaced which is much better than some past years.  The recycled water we are now using is much easier on the emitters than Vinoland's well water.
Drink up kids!

How green is my valley.

I don't know if it's me, the light quality today, or the fact that Vinoland's grapevines got a little extra TLC last night, but everything in Vinoland just looks wonderfully verdant today.  The Pinot grigio grapes are definitely a little shinier: I'll explain.
In the never ending quest to produce good quality grapes from disease free vines, preventing pests from damaging the grape crop calls for a combination of techniques, or integrated pest management (IPM).  Along with cultural practices, sometimes chemical control, the use of pesticides, can be more effective in controlling pests (in the greater context of a broad IPM strategy).  Yesterday evening was the first time Stylet-Oil (SO) was used on the grapevines (with a little Mettle® fungicide thrown in for good effect).  SO is a little more effective against powdery mildew (Uncinula necator) (PM) in cooler growing seasons (like the one the Napa Valley is experiencing this year) versus the more conventional use of sulphur.  Sulphur needs warmer temperatures to volatize (65°F is the recognised minimum temperature required for sulphur activity against PM), whereas SO is not temperature dependent and so it acts as an eradicant, protectant and, most importantly, an antisporulant 24 hours a day.  In layman's terms, SO stops spores from growing, and insects from breathing.  And it makes baby-grapes shinier.

I doff my calyptra to you, Pinot grigio.

I noticed last week that the Pinot grigio vines were starting to bloom, just a little bit here and there.  A week later, I am estimating that they are probably about 60% through bloom, (or anthesis).  Just look at those calyptra coming off.
There is a lot going on out in the vineyard right now; flowering, shoot stuffing, suckering, sulphuring, weeding, mowing, etc.  Phew!  The vines are busy, so am I, but I am not too busy to pause and acknowledge that the vines are doing most of the work.  Go buddies!

Spray day.

Today, at last, and for the next 5 day extended weather outlook, there is no rain in the forecast.  So, and not a moment too soon, the vines received their first application of sulphur for the season.  I was starting to get a bit worried about the Orange muscat vines which have a good 10-12 inches of growth already - they should have had two, preventative sulphur treatments (to ward off powdery mildew infection) by now, but the weather has not been cooperating.  Ho hum.

Past due.

It rained for most of today, most of the week actually.  Just enough drizzly rain to make my hair annoyingly curly, but not enough to put a dint in California's water shortage woes.  However, the amount of precipitation has been sufficient to make the first application (for the season) of wettable sulphur impossible.  The Orange muscat vines have about 10 inches of growth already and look fantastically healthy, but they are at the stage were they should be due a second application of powdery mildew killing sulphur, not awaiting their first.  Mother Nature is not cooperating.  So, besides my tonsorial-tribulations, I have running through my head tortuous images of the unfettered sporulation of Uncinula necator slowly creeping over my pretty, green, succulent Orange muscat shoots.  Hang in there buddies.

Tendrils gone wild.

If any further evidence was needed to prove that a grape cluster is a modified tendril, here it is - one of several hundred morphing-into-mini-cluster-tendrils that were hanging about in the Cabernet Sauvignon canopy...y'know, flowering and stuff.  Well, they were until I cut them off in their prime. 
I spent the entire past weekend stuffing shoots under trellis wires and removing the aforementioned modified tendrils, along with any other opportunistic secondary fruit clusters (on lateral shoots).  I needed to get the vineyard whipped into shape before the rain, which was forecast for the next two days, appeared.  And rain it did, much more than I expected.  Rain this time of year is not at all detrimental to the grapevines, it really is just more of a nuisance.  And now, with all the shoots stuffed, Vinomaker can easily navigate the newly tamed rows to re-sulphur the vines and protect them from powdery mildew.

Plump it up!

Fruit set in Vinoland's Pinot gris block seems to have been very successful in 2010: the fruit looks fabulous.
The vines are nearing a transitional period right now - moving away from the stage when vegetal growth dominates to the stage that favours the enlargement and maturation of the fruit. I never get bored with observing the entire process.
Vinomaker is out in the vineyard applying the final sulphur application for this year (for which he is very grateful.) He went to a meeting last night about the European Grapevine moth, so I need to debrief him as to the latest on this bothersome pest...it's a war out there people!

Win early!

While everyone is in a tizzy about the appearance in the Napa Valley of the European grapevine moth, and understandably so, there are many other threats to the vintage that the winegrower must face every growing season. Just this past Monday (May 10th) we had an exceptionally late spring frost. Rain is forecast for this coming Monday and, with bloom nearly upon us, heavy rainfall now would be disastrous for fruit set.
Possibly the biggest headache for winegrowers every year is powdery mildew (Uncinula necator), a fungal pathogen that infects all green, succulent tissue on the grapevine, including leaves and young berries. Powdery mildew (PM) can cause extensive crop loss and poor wine quality if left untreated. Temperature is the most important factor influencing the development of PM: it positively thrives in temperatures between 68-81 degrees F. Vitus vinifera cultivars vary in susceptibility to PM, but the principal control method for preventing infection in all cultivars is the application of sulphur in wettable and dust forms.
It is looking like 2010 is going to be a bumper year for this particular disease as we have had no hot weather this spring. So far this year, each sulphur application in Vinoland has been followed by a rain event making it difficult to get the upper hand in preventing further germination of conidia. But, perseverance is the key and so Vinomaker was out spraying the vines today and could oft be heard muttering to himself the mantra, win early.

Workers of the world, unite!

Happy May Day to this industrious little bumblebee (Bombus californicus). Although not needed in the vineyard as grapevines are self-pollinating, (their flowers include both stamen and carpel), there are plenty of other trees, shrubs, and flowers for this worker bee to busy herself with.
Vinomaker is out in the vineyard sulphuring the vines and I am in the middle of studying for an exam on Monday, so the only malingerers around Vinoland today are, as per usual, the Vinodogs.

Napa nest 3.

The summer solstice came and went, but the birds around here still seem to be procreating. Stop it, Vinomaker needs to sulphur the Syrah you have woven your horse hair-lined nest into. The nest in question belongs to a California Towhee (Melozone crissalis), cute birds, but I still want my vineyard to be mildew free!