Page 1 It’s Not the Heat, It’s the Humidity. And the Rain. And the Clouds. And the Fruit Flies. Chris Gerling Enology Extension Associate Cornell Enology Extension Program Climate charts and figures by Hans Walter-Peterson Viticulture Extension Associate Finger Lakes Grape Program Additional observations by members of the Cornell Extension Enology Laboratory Advisory Council VERAISON TO HARVEST Statewide Vineyard Crop Development Update #9 November 9, 2018 Edited by Tim Martinson and Chris Gerling I come to bury 2018, not to praise it. I mean, yuck. New York agriculture presents challenges every sea- son, but this one bordered on ridiculous. The past 15 years have brought everything from dev- astating winter freeze events to superstorms, but this is the year that many around the state are calling their most challenging ever, and these aren’t even the folks who were hit with seven inches of rain over two hours in August. I don’t have the heart to ask those people about the season, like I wouldn’t ask Mary Todd Lin- coln how she liked the play. For everyone except the north country, there was hu- midity, rain and rot; the north country had humidity and a drought. We know that our winemakers have plenty of tricks up their sleeves—it’s just that 2018 called for extra sleeves. Winter. According to our bud mortality tracking, the 2017-2018 winter was not particularly dangerous for grapes. There was one period in January where Lake Erie and the Finger Lakes got cold enough to reach the 10% threshold for primary bud damage on some vari- eties, but for the most part temperatures stayed above zero Fahrenheit. I don’t think the lows ever reached the LT 50 point in any of the places Cornell was tracking. In the north country it was much colder, but not by their standards, and on Long Island it was much warm- Morning clouds rise over Boundary Breaks Vineyard on Seneca Lake Photo by Tim Martinson Chris Gerling Hans Walter-Peterrson The 2018 Growing and Winemaking Season in Review
Transcript
Page 1
It’s Not the Heat, It’s the Humidity. And the Rain. And
the Clouds. And the Fruit Flies.
Chris GerlingEnology Extension Associate
Cornell Enology Extension Program
Climate charts and figures by
Hans Walter-PetersonViticulture Extension Associate Finger Lakes Grape Program
Additional observations by members of the
Cornell Extension Enology Laboratory Advisory Council
Veraison to HarVestStatewide Vineyard Crop Development Update #9
November 9, 2018Edited by Tim Martinson and Chris Gerling
I come to bury 2018, not to praise it. I mean, yuck. New York agriculture presents challenges every sea-son, but this one bordered on ridiculous.
The past 15 years have brought everything from dev-astating winter freeze events to superstorms, but this is the year that many around the state are calling their most challenging ever, and these aren’t even the folks who were hit with seven inches of rain over two hours in August. I don’t have the heart to ask those people about the season, like I wouldn’t ask Mary Todd Lin-coln how she liked the play.
For everyone except the north country, there was hu-midity, rain and rot; the north country had humidity and a drought. We know that our winemakers have plenty of tricks up their sleeves—it’s just that 2018 called for extra sleeves.
Winter. According to our bud mortality tracking, the 2017-2018 winter was not particularly dangerous for grapes. There was one period in January where Lake Erie and the Finger Lakes got cold enough to reach the 10% threshold for primary bud damage on some vari-eties, but for the most part temperatures stayed above zero Fahrenheit. I don’t think the lows ever reached the LT50 point in any of the places Cornell was tracking.
In the north country it was much colder, but not by their standards, and on Long Island it was much warm-
Morning clouds rise over Boundary Breaks Vineyard on Seneca LakePhoto by Tim Martinson
lated enough heat to catch up to and then exceed the long-term average. While the heat caught up, rainfall lagged behind, with April and June both being drier than average (Figure 2). On Long Island, it was a cool, wet spring that Rich Olsen at Bedell calls “more or less the norm for the North Fork.” They started a little behind, but these days Long Island picks up 3000 GDD with-out fail. The Hudson Valley seemed to get the lousy downstate spring and lousy upstate sum-mer, making for what Michael Migliore at White-cliff calls “the most difficult season in 40 years of growing grapes.”Summer. By late June, lawns were actually start-ing to brown a bit and people upstate talked more of dryness than anything else. July was also a lit-tle dry, meaning that in Geneva three of the four months from April through July were below the long term average for rainfall (see Figure 2). That feels like a long time ago, or maybe some dreamed alternate reality. Whatever the feeling, “dry” is not a word I will associate with my mem-ories of 2018.
er, but not by their standards. There were some storms, inasmuch as the last day of B.E.V. NY (February conference in Rochester) got snowed right the heck out.
The good/bad of winter was the late period, where the temps locked in around the mid-30s and refused to budge. There was none of the 90-degrees-in-March silliness we’ve seen in other years, and not really any significant warming as the calendar turned but the thermometer didn’t.
Spring. The Growing Degree Day (GDD) accu-mulator pushed the snooze button, racking up a measly 8.2 GDD for the entire month of April in Geneva (see Figure 1). As a participant in the Sen-eca 7 race on April 29, I know there were snow-flakes and that it was a rough day to ride a bike. I didn’t ride a bike, but I know it was a rough day to ride one.
While it wasn’t much fun for people, the grapes were never tricked into breaking dormancy ear-ly—so there was that. May did its best to make up for April (at least upstate), where we accumu-
Figure 1. Monthly growing degree day accumulations at Geneva in 2018 versus the long term 40-year average.
Figure by Hans Walter-Peterson
Early June, W. Seneca Lake. This Noiret vineyard was the site of a cov-er-crop trial (Justine Vanden Heuvel program) for the past 3 years, on a well-drained site with shallow, gravelly soils. Despite significant drought stress last year, there were only modest carryover effects (slightly reduced cluster number, cluster size) on the 2017 crop.
Photo by Tim Martinson Figure 2. Monthly rainfall accumulation at Geneva in 2018 vs. the long-term 40-year average.
Figure by Hans Walter-Peterson
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breakers, 2018 was as humid as it gets in every part of the state (see Figure 3).
Then came the rains. I’m part of a group that goes running every Saturday morning at the north end of Seneca lake. I’ve been doing this for a few years now, and in that time we’ve seen all sorts of lake activities and weather conditions.
What I hadn’t seen until this year was piles of de-bris washing up on shore, as if from a shipwreck. It wasn’t from a shipwreck, of course, it was the remnants of the freak storm and resulting floods that hammered the middle of the lake on August 14 and 15. Some areas received as much as seven inches of rain in two hours, and Hector received 11.3 inches over those two days (Figure 4).
Water destroyed fields, roads and bridges, and the landscape still shows plenty of scars. That catastrophic event was like some almighty on-switch, and it feels like New York hasn’t gone a week without significant rain since then.
August changed the narrative in a number of ways. First, there was the heat and humidity. While August was above average by GDDs, it wasn’t hugely above average, especially by recent standards.
Syracuse.com meterologist Glenn Coin looked at August in Syracuse, and noted that while the highs were 1.3 degrees warmer than average, nightly lows were 4.3 degrees warmer than aver-age. He then used the Iowa State Mesonet system to produce an astounding chart of the summer hours with dew point at or above 70F, which is ba-sically hours where it’s Too Dang Humid (TDH).
The year 2018 had more than twice as many TDH hours as the next highest year, at least in Syra-cuse. I looked at weather stations across the state, and found that while not all of them were record-
Figure 4. On August 14, between 2:00 and 7:00 AM, this vineyard-based weather station on east Seneca Lake logged a total of 7 inches of rain, at a rate of up to 1.5 inches per hour (top). Just across the laske in Dresden (bottom), rainfall was much less intense—and dropped ‘only’ 2.3 inches on August 14.
Figure by Tim Martinson
Figure 3. Hours with dew point above 70 °F during June, July, and August in four regions of New York.
Photo by Tim Martinson
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Meanwhile, just across the lake near Dresden, the rainfall ‘only’ totaled 2.3 inches, and the flash-flood produced little damage to infrastructure or vineyards (Fig. 4, bottom).Geneva received relatively little of the August Deluge, but you can see that we still doubled the long-term average for the month. And when it didn’t rain, it was cloudy. August featured more cloudy days at 1 pm than any on record at the Penn Yan airport (Figure 5).
Fall. Labor Day felt a little like the bell to end a round in a boxing match between grapes and mother nature—a boxing match that was not going par-ticularly well for the grapes. What had begun with reason-able hopes and relative success had somehow gotten wildly out of hand, and now we could only hope to escape without too much more damage. In the years I’ve been writing these season recaps, one of the more frequent narratives has been the iffy summer followed by the excellent fall to save the season.
Again in 2018 we were in desperate need of a warm, dry September and October to boost ma-turity and ease disease pressure. Spoiler Alert: no dice.Maybe it was the damage already done by the hu-midity (Figure 6). Maybe it was the rain, which never left for more than three days in a row. Maybe it was a combination of these factors or other factors that were harder to perceive, but for whatever reason, sometime around September 15th the rot index went from suboptimal-but-man-ageable to Zombie Apocalypse, Vineyard Edition. Figure 5. Days With Cloud Cover at 1pm, Penn Yan Airport.
Figure by Chris Gerling
Figure 6. Hours at Dew Point 70F or Higher in September. Note: Blue shading indicates years with missing data. My interpretation is that non-blue years with no bar just had very few or no hours of dew point 70F
Figure by Chris Gerling
Stream bed on east Seneca Lake scoured by the August 14 flood. Photo by Tim Martinson
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that they fought the good fight as well and as long as they could. Grapes are in the cellars, and New York winemakers are not easily fazed. Just don’t be surprised to see them walking around in shirts with eight or nine sleeves.
Acknowledgements:
Glenn Coin at Syracuse.com published the fol-lowing article that allowed us to find the humid-ity charts in this article, which were created with the Iowa State Mesonet system:
From this point on, harvest entered the salvage phase. Sullen, soggy grape growers delivered fruit to sullen, sticky winemakers, as quickly and efficiently as possible. Sugars were low, acids were low, morale was low. Rot and frustration were high. Almost everywhere, grapes were har-vested early and/ or at lower sugar levels.
The working theory is that the warm nights helped acid degradation, while the clouds and rain did not help sugar accumulation. Earlier varieties could (sometimes) be pulled in close to maturity before too much damage materialized. Disease resistant cultivars were good to have this year, but they still lacked ripening conditions. Riesling, being a relatively late variety but also one prone to rot, took it on the chin.Wines. Michael Migliore is happiest with the ear-ly whites, but says “Everything else was picked on degree of rot and weather coming at us.” That picking schedule was an all-too-common theme in 2018. In the Finger Lakes, Kelby Russell says the Bordeaux reds held well, and Kris Kane echoed that sentiment in Lake Erie, while also calling at-tention to good quality of his Gruner Veltliner. On Long Island, Rich Olsen agrees on Cab Franc, includes Malbec, and also likes Sauvignon Blanc and Albariño. Andrew Rockwell at Sparkling Pointe says they’re happy with most of what they have, but notes that they picked 7-10 days later than usual to achieve the maturity they were af-ter. Lindsey Pashow from Harvest NY thinks yields were up in the north country, possibly due to a lack of winter/ spring damage.Kris Kane at 21 Brix sums up 2018 perfectly: “It was a real bummer type of year.” Winery owners in the Hudson Valley and Finger Lakes both told me this was their hardest year ever. When I text my Niagara and Lake Erie contacts, I receive the kind of jokes my dairy farming cous-ins tend to make, which are of the have-to-laugh-or-I’ll-cry type. The Long Island reports are more positive, but I still see comments like “it was a good year to be making sparkling wine,” and “I’m grateful for the tireless efforts of my vineyard manager,” which I think can be interpreted as: Challenges Were Faced. If there’s good news, it’s that the grape growers are now or will shortly be done for the season, and can hopefully at least take solace in the fact
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Improving markets. There has been some good market news for juice. Volume of sales is up sig-nificantly for National Grape and Refresco (for-mally Cott). The pace of sales and price is on a modest rise for Growers Cooperative. Most im-portantly for some, Agri-America has set a target of processing 7,000 tons in their newly acquired processing plant in Fredonia, NY (Formally part of Cott/Star). Not all market news is good news. This was cer-tainty a bright spot compared to recent years but there is ample reason for grape growers to remain cautious. This good news is directly related to Concord juice being offered to more markets. It is not related to a fundamental shift in the demand for grape, juice or other caloric beverages. On the retail level, low price pressures mostly remain. If demand and price do remain healthy processors will likely increase investment in fa-cilities, increasing long-term profitability and sustainability as those investments have been re-duced by most processors over the last five years.
For western New York growers, above-average rainfall through-out the season led to more chal-lenges than most had antici-pated. During the latter period of harvest, weather improved slightly, but increased losses from disease, insect and splitting
were widely reported. Processors struggled with Concord fruit that
pressed as though it was more mature than brix indicated. Brix accumulation during harvest was well below expected performance.Yields, sugars, and late-season crop shrinkage. Average juice soluble solids for the region has been 16.3° brix in the juice grape market. With most plants taking in similar brix, National’s North East plant has been somewhat higher than average at 16.4° brix. Quality issues that impacted crop size showed up in final yields. Yields were tracking to beat estimates by 5% in the first week of harvest. But by the end of harvest overall yields ended up 5% lower than estimates.Virtually no growers had issues meeting mini-mum brix standards. Many growers reported ac-cumulating less than 2° brix throughout the entire harvest season. Those that were just shy of mini-mum standards found themselves harvesting late and delivering loads in the “penalty zone” of 14.5 – 15.0° brix for National Grape. Growers deliver-ing to other processors typically hit 15.0° brix but lost as much as 20% of yield while waiting. It serves as a good reminder that even in an un-usually good year there continue to be outside risks of weather during the fall that slow ripen-ing. Since we cannot harvest all of the acreage in the last two weeks of harvest it is important to manage different blocks differently. A 15.5 on September 20th is a different target than a 15.5 on October 24th.The same old challenges all remain; harvest is a reminder that it is never easy. That being said, this may well turn out to be the best harvest some growers have had in the last 5 years.
Kevin Martin
Lake Erie Region Update Brix Accumulation, Rain and Yield: Measuring the Impact
Kevin Martin, Extension Farm Business Management AssociateLake Erie Regional Grape Program, Cornell and Penn State Cooperative Extension
Concord Harvest in Niagara county.Photo by Tim Weigle
Page 7
The wine market has also softened. We have seen high productivity in recent years from other re-gions. The market to supply small wineries is be-coming increasingly competitive. Even National Grape Cooperative has entered the space. Also, wine demand is pointing toward another evolution in consumer taste and behavior. This may lead to some upheaval in major labels. We don’t know what ingredients (grape varieties) will emerge in new product lines. Depending on the severity of shift in consumer behavior, we ac-tually do not know that new product lines will fully replace the old ones.Harvested acreage increases. As a result of good market news (a new processor taking more grapes), we saw an increase harvested acreage and total Concord yields. The region processed nearly 175,000 tons of Concords at a final average brix of approximately 16.3°. The total tonnage includes an estimated 30,000 tons of Concords processed into wine. This average Brix does not in-clude Concord processed into wine, as wineries sometimes intentionally schedule and request low sugar. We did see a sig-nificant drop in hybrid prices not sold to the large wineries. Without a frost in the Midwest, I would expect those prices to con-tinue to drop. Without a frost, there may not be a market for all tonnage produced next year.
Concord vineyards in view of Lake Erie.Photo by Tim Weigle
In 2018, berry weight tracked slightly lower than the long-term average, while soluble solids started out ahead of average, then converged with the long-term average at the CLEREL farm in Portland, NY.
Figures by Terry Bates
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Fruit Chemistry Trends: 2014-2018Timothy E MartinsonSection of Horticulture
Cornell AgriTechLast year at this time (2017, yel-low bars in our figures), we were looking at what was a very high yielding year for many vinif-era varieties, but generally with high brix and moderate acids. Many Concord growers also had above-average yields with good maturity (although some over-cropped vineyard ran into K de-ficiency that stalled ripening).
Our five-year average includes the relatively cool 2014 season (brix starting low and acids starting high, but ending up in the right place at harvest), and the relatively warmer 2015 and 2016 seasons (2016 of course being a drought year with small berry size, high brix and low acids).
This year, all the maturity indicators ended up right in the middle of the five-year average, ex-cept for one: Soluble solids.
With the exception of early-harvested Chardon-nay (~20 °Brix, but some harvested a week or two later than normal), and champion sugar-accumulator Marquette (24°Brix), soluble solids ended up at the low end of the five-year average. Cabernet franc, Merlot, and Traminette all ended up around ~18.0 °Brix (Range = roughly 18 to 22 °Brix in our 5 year average). Our large sample of 16 Riesling blocks averaged 17. 5 °Brix at harvest (range 17.5-20.5 °Brix).
A look at the brix curves shows a notable flatten-ing around week 4 or 5 (September 23 samples). After that date, there appears to have been very little sugar accumulation across many varieties. Opinions vary about why – but I suspect that saturated soils (some had standing water in row middles at harvest), ample moisture (which may have diluted sugars in some cases) and extensive cloud cover all played a role.
Often the region has either a ‘high brix – low acid’ year (warmer and drier) or a ‘low brix-high acid’ year (cooler and wetter). This year might be re-membered as (among other things) a ‘low brix-low acid’ year.
Cabernet Franc Top to Bottom: Berry Wt, Brix, pH, TA
1.001.101.201.301.401.501.601.701.801.90
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
Berr
y W
eigh
t (g)
Week
2014
2015
2016
2017
2018
Average
10.0
12.0
14.0
16.0
18.0
20.0
22.0
24.0
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
o Bri
x
Sample Week
2014
2015
2016
2017
2018
Average
2.702.802.903.003.103.203.303.403.503.603.70
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
pH
Sample Week
2014
2015
2016
2017
2018
Average
4.0
6.0
8.0
10.0
12.0
14.0
16.0
18.0
20.0
22.0
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
Titr
atab
le A
cidi
ty (g
/L)
Sample Week
2014
2015
2016
2017
2018
Average
Tim Martinson
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ChardonnayTop to Bottom: Berry Wt, Brix, pH, TA
MerlotTop to Bottom: Berry Wt, Brix, pH, TA
1.40
1.50
1.60
1.70
1.80
1.90
2.00
2.10
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
Berr
y W
eigh
t (g)
Week
2014
2015
2016
2017
2018
Average
10
12
14
16
18
20
22
24
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
o Bri
x
Sample Week
2014
2015
2016
2017
2018
Average
2.80
3.00
3.20
3.40
3.60
3.80
4.00
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
pH
Sample Week
2014
2015
2016
2017
2018
Average
2.0
4.0
6.0
8.0
10.0
12.0
14.0
16.0
18.0
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Titr
atab
le A
cidi
ty (g
/L)
Sample Week
2014
2015
2016
2017
2018
Average
11.11.21.31.41.51.61.71.81.9
2
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
Berr
y W
eigh
t (g)
Week
2014
2015
2016
2017
2018
Average
8
10
12
14
16
18
20
22
24
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
o Bri
x
Sample Week
2014
2015
2016
2017
2018
Average
2.5
2.7
2.9
3.1
3.3
3.5
3.7
3.9
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
pH
Sample Week
2014
2015
2016
2017
2018
Average
5
7
9
11
13
15
17
19
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
Titr
atab
le A
cidi
ty (g
/L)
Sample Week
2014
2015
2016
2017
2018
Average
Page 10
RieslingTop to Bottom: Berry Wt, Brix, pH, TA
TraminetteTop to Bottom: Berry Wt, Brix, pH, TA
11.11.21.31.41.51.61.71.81.9
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
Berr
y W
eigh
t (g)
Week
2014
2015
2016
2017
2018
Average
8
10
12
14
16
18
20
22
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
o Bri
x
Sample Week
2014
2015
2016
2017
2018
Average
2.50
2.60
2.70
2.80
2.90
3.00
3.10
3.20
3.30
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
pH
Sample Week
2014
2015
2016
2017
2018
Average
5.0
10.0
15.0
20.0
25.0
30.0
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
Titr
atab
le A
cidi
ty (g
/L)
Sample Week
2014
2015
2016
2017
2018
Average
1.201.301.401.501.601.701.801.902.002.102.20
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
Berr
y W
eigh
t (g)
Week
2014
2015
2016
2017
2018
Average
1.201.301.401.501.601.701.801.902.002.102.20
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
Berr
y W
eigh
t (g)
Week
2014
2015
2016
2017
2018
Average
8
10
12
14
16
18
20
22
24
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
o Bri
x
Sample Week
2014
2015
2016
2017
2018
Average
2.50
2.60
2.70
2.80
2.90
3.00
3.10
3.20
3.30
3.40
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
pH
Sample Week
2014
2015
2016
2017
2018
Average
579
1113151719212325
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Titr
atab
le A
cidi
ty (g
/L)
Sample Week
2014
2015
2016
2017
2018
Average
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ConcordTop to Bottom: Berry Wt, Brix, pH, TA
MarquetteTop to Bottom: Berry Wt, Brix, pH, TA
1
1.1
1.2
1.3
1.4
1.5
1.6
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
Berr
y W
eigh
t (g)
Week
2014
2015
2016
2017
2018
Average
12
14
16
18
20
22
24
26
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
o Bri
x
Sample Week
2014
2015
2016
2017
2018
Average
2.8
2.85
2.9
2.95
3
3.05
3.1
3.15
3.2
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
pH
Sample Week
2014
2015
2016
2017
2018
Average
5
7
9
11
13
15
17
19
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
Titr
atab
le A
cidi
ty (g
/L)
Sample Week
2014
2015
2016
2017
2018
Average
2
2.5
3
3.5
4
4.5
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
Berr
y W
eigh
t (g)
Week
2014
2015
2016
2017
2018
Average
8
10
12
14
16
18
20
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
o Bri
x
Sample Week
2014
2015
2016
2017
2018
Average
2.5
2.7
2.9
3.1
3.3
3.5
3.7
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
pH
Sample Week
2014
2015
2016
2017
2018
Average
579
1113151719212325
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
Titr
atab
le A
cidi
ty (g
/L)
Sample Week
2014
2015
2016
2017
2018
Average
Page 12
Can Sheep Replace Herbicides, Mowing, and Suckering?Janet van Zoeren and Justine Vanden Heuvel
Weeding and suckering can both be expensive and time consuming in the vineyard, so wouldn’t it be nice to have a laborforce willing to mow and sucker for free? Justine Vanden Heuvel’s program auditioned a flock of sheep as a free la-bor source in a trial that took place in a 0.6 acre Noiret block at Cornell AgriTech. If successful, sheep grazing in the vine-yard could prove to be a simple, cost-effective method to keep down weeds, add fertilizer, and remove suckers. It worked. According to Justine, “They ate every weed in the block but the thistle –including poi-son ivy, Virginia creeper, etc., so that mowing wasn’t necessary. They also did a beautiful job suckering the vines, just as good as a human.”
“However, if we wanted to keep a sucker for trunk renewal, we would have had to find a way to protect it (like maybe use a tree protector).”One published report (Franson 2013) suggests that using sheep in a vineyard can save four to eight tractor passes and eight hours of labor per year.
Noiret trunks before (left) and after (right) sheep grazing.Photo by Justine Vanden Heuvel
In Justine’s trial, 23 sheep were released in the-Noiret block for 3.5 days in early June. They were kept in the block only as long as there were ad-equate weeds to forage on, reducing their tempta-tion to feed on the canopy. However, they showed no interest in the fruit clusters. Only one of the 23 sheep showed any behavior of putting its hooves on the trunk or feeding on the canopy shoots. Some maintenance is necessary to care for the sheep while they’re in the vineyard. In Justine’strial, they checked on the sheep daily to makes sure they had plenty of water and miner-als, fenced them in using a solar powered, move-able electric fence, and provided a shelter to pro-tect them from predators. Justine, along with Alexia Hain (a local shep-herd), has applied for a Northeastern SARE grant to support further studies on using sheep in high-trained vineyards. Overall, sheep in the vineyard, at least for a short period in the spring, could be a great option for weed and sucker control. For More Information:Franson, P. 2013. Keeping Sheep in Vineyards After Bud Break. Wines and Vines (available at https://www.winesandvines.com/news/ar-ticle/119732/Keeping-Sheep-in-Vineyards-After-Bud-Break)
Noiret vineyard block after 23 sheep spent 3 days grazing, weeding, and suckering.
Thanks to Our Crew: Lake Erie Grape Program Tim Weigle, Kevin Martin, and Vincent Kane
Finger Lakes Grape Program Hans Walter-Peterson and Don Caldwell
Extension Enology, Geneva:
Pam Raes, Chris Gerling,
Cortni &Ashton Stahl,
Hannah Shedenholm, and
Molly Cappiello
Statewide Viticulture Extension: Bill Wilsey (pictured) and Tim Martinson
The information, including any advice or recommendations, con-tained herein is based upon the research and experience of Cornell Cooperative Extension person-nel. While this information constitutes the best judgement/opinion of such personnel at the time issued, neither Cornell Cooperative Extension nor any representative thereof makes any representation or warrantee, express or implied, of any particular result or application of such information, or regarding any product. Users of any product are encouraged to read and follow product-labeling instructions and check with the manufacturer or supplier for updated information. Nothing contained in this information should be interpreted as an endorsement expressed or implied of any particular product.
This newsletter was made possible with support from the New York Wine and Grape Foundation and the Lake Erie Regional Grape Research and Extension Program, Inc.
Veraison to Harvest is a joint publication of: Cornell Enology Extension Program
Statewide Viticulture Extension ProgramLong Island Grape Program - Suffolk CCE
Finger Lakes Grape ProgramLake Erie Regional Grape Program
Thanks to Our SupportersMajor Support for Veraison to Harvest was provided through the Lake Erie Regional Grape Research and Extension Program, Inc., the New York Wine and Grape Foundation, and Constellation Brands. This is the 12th season of Veraison to Harvest, and we thank these organizations for their consistent support since the 2007 growing season.
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