Got Buds!

We have several new varieties that we planted last year so I wanted to take a few photos of our emerging buds, a miracle in itself. Here are some photos of what our buds look like in late April.

Variety	Buds	Advanced Buds
Cabernet Franc Clone 327
Cabernet Franc Clone 214
Cabernet Sauvignon Clone 412
Chardonnay Clone 96
Chardonnay Clone 76
Chenin Blanc Clone 982
Auxerrois Clone FPS-1

It is interesting to me to compare the above table of our buds with the blog I wrote on May 8, 2015 called Waiting For Budbreak. It appears that this year's budbreak is about 1 week earlier than in 2015.

Planting Preparation

It's that time of the year again to put in the last allotment of vines from our original order that we submitted to our nursery in the winter of 2014 for shipment/planting in the spring of 2016. Last year, we replanted 4200 vines which took us 6 days. This is the preparation work for planting. What really helped us last year to even contemplate planting 4200 vines was the rental of a dingo. This year, we rented a slightly different dingo and began slightly earlier. Our yeoman friends came at 9 a.m. Much to our embarassment, they were there before us, eager beavers! They worked continuously from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. and drilled a total of 420 holes! Only 1080 more to go!

Vintage Notes: April 2017

True to adage, April showers are occurring even as I write this. I think this rain is a departure from the previous years that we've been keeping tabs on the weather. Here is what I could find on the Internet regarding the weather in our area. I have circled the rain days in red. The average rainfall in our area occurs in the 31 days centered around April 3rd.

We are getting ready to plant 1500 more vines this year, so this is welcome rain, but it is happening right when we are getting ready to auger the plant holes. Yesterday, our friends came to help us with all kinds of pre-planting tasks. At the end of the work day husband also got his tractor running and weeded the rows that we will be planting in. While he was doing that, I took a few photos of our Auxerrois and Chenin Blanc buds, still in the wooly bud stage. Some of the Chenin Blanc buds are slightly beyond the wooly bud stage and beginning to transition into the green tip (or in the case of Chenin Blanc, pink tip) stage.

Grape Cane Gallmaker

During pruning, we came upon a problem that we were noticing near the nodes on some of our canes. Leave it to my husband to find the cause of this malady. Our problem is textbook grape cane gall and the causative agent is a tiny snout beetle. We read all about this at grape cane gallmaker, a publication by the New York State Agricultural Experiment Station. There are two different Ampeloglypter species, one which causes grape cane girdling and the other which causes this problem at the nodes. The grape cane gallmaker overwinters in debris on the ground and begins doing it's damage during May and June when the grape vines are about 25 to 50 cm long.
The damage that we were observing was caused by the female hollowing out a small cavity just above a node and placing a single egg into the cavity which she fills with frass. The pupa or larval stage lasts from June to August. If signs of Ampeloglypter damage is seen on a cane, it can be pruned before the adult form emerges.

Not too many of our canes were affected but, now that we know what to look out for, hopefully we can remove affected canes so as to prevent the proliferation of this gallmaker.
Reference:
1. Grape Cane Gallmaker, New York State Agricultural Experiment Station.