Mowing and Cool Sightings in the Vineyard

My husband gave me the keys to the tractor yesterday and had me mow the tall clover that has grown up in the vineyard alleys. I did a little mowing last summer so I was familiar with what I needed to do but initially, my husband gave me a little refresher: (1) select the rpm driven PTO, (2) engage the PTO, (3) lower the Ferri mower to the proper level, (4) slowly bring up the revs, (5) put the tractor in gear while stepping on the brakes, (6) take off the parking brakes and then go! Yikes, I was going fast. I made one pass and my husband was waiting for me at the other end. I'm shouting, "How do I put this in creeper gear!" I put on the brakes and my husband put me in creeper gear. Much better. So, I'm going up and down the vineyard alleys mowing, mowing, mowing. Why? Because it's so much easier just to keep on going than to remember how to reverse the instructions so that I can stop.

I was able to stop the tractor and by the afternoon, I could start and stop the tractor on my own. I'm hoping that this blogpost will be a reminder for the next time I need to mow the vineyard. It's looking really good, but you can be sure that I'll need to mow the vineyard again, probably in about 10 days or so.
Now that the clover has been beaten down, it is much easier to walk the vineyard alleys and look at some cool stuff. The grape flowers are getting larger compared to the first time that I took a picture of them. Also, when I was walking in the vineyard I saw this bald faced hornet probably engaged in making a nest.

I found an interesting article on the Internet on the bald faced hornet. These nests get pretty large so I don't think this little grape leaf stalk (petiole) will accommodate the hornet nest. But it was pretty cool to see.

Appellation Cornell on Crown Galls

I've subscribed to the online newsletter from Cornell University called Appellation Cornell even before we began planting our vines. In this month's newsletter, I found a timely article written by Tim Martinson and Tom Burr that answers the question I Have Galls in my Vineyard: Should I Call my Nursery?.
This question could have been written by us because as we did our pruning back in April, we noticed that there was crown gall on some of the plants. As we focused on which plants had the crown gall, we realized that it was only the Auxerrois that seemed to have succumbed to this malady. We pulled out those vines affected with the crown gall and considered notifying our nursery.
The organism that causes the crown gall is a bacteria called Agrobacterium vitis.
What Tim Martinson and Tom Burr report in this article is that when a new, more sensitive testing method called magnetic capture hybridization (1000 times more sensitive in detecting the bacterium) was used, it was found that A. vitis is rather ubiquitous in the environment. Even if crown gall-free foundation plants could be generated, the chances for infection in the vineyard still remains a possibility.
Gall-formation is triggered mainly in damaged tissue in response to cold injury or in graft unions (where tissue is intentionally damaged and callus tissue forms at the union to bond the rootstock and scion together).

Here on the right, is a photo of our Auxerrois with crown gall formed at the graft union, which in our case is a tall-grafted vine. The bacteria forms at these sites after transferring an element of its DNA to the plant. During the spring, when the grapevine is actively growing and dividing, the DNA transferred to these cells from the bacterium gets expressed and causes the tissue to form galls instead of forming organized conductive tissues (e.g. Phloem, cambium, and xylem tissues) to repair the injury.
So the answer to this question is, "Your nursery is not to blame."
References:
1. Tim Martinson and Tom Burr, I Have Galls in my Vineyard: Should I Call my Nursery?, May, 2015.
2. Burr, T. and T. Martinson, 2015, Grape Crown Gall, Factsheet of the National Clean Plant Network – Grapes.

1998 Vieux Télégraphe La Crau

My husband seems to recall that we bought this 1998 Vieux Télégraphe close to when it was released. This was when he was still hanging on Robert Parker's every word regarding wine and the fact that it was imported by Kermit Lynch was also a plus. I do recall that we went to a wine shop in rural Massachusetts, where it was is lost in the fog of time, and we saw Vieux Télégraphe for sale there. It seemed to be reasonably priced at around $35.00 a bottle, and less expensive than Chateau de Beaucastel. We left the wine shop without making a purchase but then stopped and thought about it for a while and decided to go back and got half a case.
So, recently, we drank the last bottle from this purchase. I thought I got a little whiff of VA (volatile acidity) on the nose upon opening, which blew away as I swirled the inky purple liquid in my glass. I was spicy and still had berry fruit, but it really was a must drink now kind of bottle. We drank this with a rack of barbeque pork that my husband grilled. It was just the right touch after working out in the vineyard.
I found a very good article on Domaine du Vieux Télégraphe on the Kermit Lynch Wine Merchant site. On this site, I learned that the composition of the Vieux Télégraphe is 65% Grenache, 15% Mourvèdre, 15% Syrah, 5% (Cinsault, Clairette, et al).

Forestry Plan

On Monday of this week, we were able to have Certified Forester, Joan Nichols out to look at our forest. She is a crack at identifying trees and quickly told us that we have a lot of red maple which is really one of the succession trees in a forest. We showed her our prized tulip poplar which she thought may be about 150 years old. When we got to the east edge of the logging path, Joan identified a black oak which was covered with invasives. We need to clean this beauty. All the while that we were walking in our forest, I heard a lot of birds chirping, a veritable mellifluous cacophony.
We walked to the north end of the field where I saw our hunter's stand, very cleverly disguised and his camera which has captured some shots of a bobcat and foxes in the past. On this path, Joan excitedly pointed out a beautiful, old sugar maple. She showed us her prism which she uses to count the trees that are of a certain diameter. We left Joan to do her work and then went home to finish up some other tasks.

In the early evening, Joan called us to say that she ran into a clutch of woodcocks in our forest and that was quite exciting. Also, in the same area that she first identified the sugar maple, she saw another stand of sugar maples! We didn't know what a woodcock was, so we searched on the Internet and I found the Cornell Ornithology Lab, where I found some excellent information and this photo.
We've always valued the forest and the balance of life there, and it was nice to learn about the woodcocks and whatever else might be there. Our plan for the forest was to created a walking path where we do not unduly disturb the balance of nature. I'm a little fastidious and I wanted to clear the fallen trees and branches, but Joan explained that those fallen trees, while they may look a little unsightly, are homes and hiding places for the creatures that live there. I have a new appreciation for our forest.