Tuesday, May 5, 2020

The State of Our Grape Buds

April started off with many warm days and we were anticipating an early bud break but the latter half of April brought cooler weather which is still the case in May. In fact, this coming Saturday, we are forecasted to have low temperatures in the high 30's. So, what's a bud to do?
Here is where the buds of our various varieties are as of yesterday:
Variety
Budbreak Stage
Auxerrois
Chenin Blanc
Chardonnay
Cabernet Sauvignon
Cabernet Franc
Barbera
I compared the stage of our buds this year with the blogpost I wrote in 2019 Vintage 2019: May Budbreak in our Vineyard, showing that we are clearly behind the stage we were at last year.
According to the Modified Eichhorn Lorenz (E-L) System, our buds are currently between the E-L stage 3 wooly bud +/- green showing and stage 4 bud burst leaf tips visible.
Of all the varieties that we have planted in the vineyard, the Cabernet Sauvignon is the farthest behind, which is what we saw last year. This year, we have our first Barbera that we have trained in a single guyot and the buds look pretty far along!

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