Hello,
This month
has just flown by Why, it seems like just last week I was writing the May
climate summary. Here is what June felt like if you lived in the vineyard (keep
your head down when the hedger comes by.)
We have
recorded about 303 degree days for the month of June, providing a total of 497
degree days since the beginning of the growing season on April 1. This compares
with 254 degree days last June and comparative total of 514 degree days. Year
to date, the percentage difference (3.42%) is about equal to "the ratio of
the circumference to the diameter of a circle" or "the 16th letter of
the Greek alphabet." I like mine with peaches.
During
June, our highest high was 93.2 and our lowest high was 88.7. Our lowest low
was 40.2 and our highest low was 42.5 degrees Fahrenheit. The rainfall for June
was 082 inches and was about 0.19 inches less than last June's rain of 1.01.
Rainfall since April 1 through June 30th was 4.83 inches, and is 0.99 inches
less than last year's Q2 accumulation of 5.82 inches. In other words, we are
short about 27,000 gallons per acre from last year during this period, or about
11,400 cases worth.
Second
wires are up and the shoots are clipped into place. We are now raising third
wires, but I fear the race is lost to exponential growth we are seeing. I have
hedging on my mind a little early this year, followed by leaf pull. I have
rotated out of sulfur and into Flint for our first post bloom spray due to the
Botrytis control. The rest of the season I will rotate with DMIs, other
strobies and a blast of Quintec.
Fruit set
is generally looking very good. I am seeing some clusters that are much more
developed than others. I think bloom was impacted by warm weather at the end of
May and then cool and somewhat damp weather during bloom. We could have some
clusters ripen significantly earlier than others. This happened to our Dijon
clone 114/5C in 2004. We had a shot of rain in late August and a significant
portion of the berries split. Please see the enclosed graphs for the high, low
and average temperatures during bloom.
These
graphs show the high, low and average temperatures from June of this year and
2006 from the data logger most centrally located in the vineyard. The blue line
is set at 75 degrees and the red line is at 50. Bloom began for us on June 5th
in 2007 and June 8th in 2006.
Ernie
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