Eichhorn-Lorenz Stage 15

This year, we are seeing a lot of evidence of inflorescence (flowers) on our Auxerrois, Chenin Blanc and Chardonnay. On May 28th, most of the inflorescence are at Eichhorn-Lorenz Stage 15.

I began tracking the various stages of our vines beginning in 2015, when I first saw flowering. I got this timeline online from Ed Hellman's excellent article called Grapevine Structure and Function. I finally have a few data points on our timeline which now looks like this:

This tracking is helpful because it will tell us the dates of the interval between flowering and harvest and how to plan for our spraying. This year, spring has been exceedingly rainy, so there is a lot of spraying going on to beat down any chance of powdery and downy mildew getting a foothold.

About a week later, on June 5th, most of the inflorescences are at Eichhorn-Lorenz, stage 17. At this stage, the inflorescences are fully developed and flowers separating. And after all, if stage 17 is here, can bloom be far behind?

Reference:
1. Ed Hellman, Grapevine Structure and Function.