Waiting For Budbreak

We have been busy transplanting our grape vines from various locations in the vineyard as well as bringing our backyard nursery plants to plant in the vineyard. Interestingly, since our backyard is very close to the shore, the temperatures are cooler than at our vineyard, and the bud stage reflects this difference in mesoclimate.
We first moved our Chardonnay so that they were all in one block and gave them some water, about 4 days later, buds that were closed are now poised for budbreak.

The revelation to us was that in addition to warm temperatures, plants need water. Duh. In the spring, the soil is, or should be at field capacity so this is not a problem. But when planting new vines, like we did in 2013, we cannot rely on Mother Nature to provide us with timely rainfall.
Even though the winter of 2014-2015 was brutually cold and snowy, it appears that our vines have pulled through, or at least have acclimated to the New England winter. Last year, on May 10th, I blogged about the Various Stages of Dormancy, so if the pictures on that blog are any indication of the phenological stage that the buds were in, I believe that this year, we are right on schedule.

Last year, it seemed that our Auxerrois were the laggards and they seem to be following the same pattern this year.

We are like expectant parents, waiting for budbreak!