Have you ever looked at the forecast and want to cry?

[David Engel]

Hi All,

As you may know, I’m a newbie in the grape growing and wine making hobby. I also only have 9 vines, but this year 8 of those vines produced like you see in the movies. Last year our September and October here in Western Washington were sunny and warm and really unbelievable. It rained last night and supposed to have rain (30-50%) 9 out of the next 12 days. I’m going to guess the way anyone is able to salvage some harvest if the weather goes bad is to have enough of a crop to get some return. Any other tiny vineyard growers out there?

Dave

 

[Neb Farmer]

I'm near Vancouver USA and have a small backyard vineyard of 10 riesling, 10 sangiovese, and 25 nebbiolo....small but adequate! the vines are 11 years old, and they produce pretty well, except the nebbiolo seems to be sparse. You take what you get!
This time of year is always interesting ! Waiting for grapes to finish ripening and hoping the weather holds out. The upcoming rain we are going to have is supposed to begin tomorrow, i guess. Hopefully it won't be too much or too long. I could still use a few weeks of Indian Summer. My vines have typically ripened a week or two into October, and it looks that way for this year,too. Knowing that, I spray sulpher up into early September, knowing that powdery mildew loves to rear it's ugly head right at harvest time. The riesling seems to be particularily suceptabile to that.
So...things are normal here...just hoping for the best.

 

[Rob Kneeland]

Yeah, for me the scariest time is May. I get bud break in early May but a risk of frost through to the end of the month. I spend a lot of time staring at forecasts.

I have not yet awakened at 3AM to hose the vines until 6AM but never say never.

 

[Sage]

South East corner of WA. 80's last week, rain 60's now.

 

[ratflinger]

Well send that rain to South Texas, it's been hotter than Hell since the middle of June and just as dry.

 

[VinesnBines]

I have not yet awakened at 3AM to hose the vines until 6AM but never say never.

I did this in April. It did no good at all. I have a great secondary crop for most and the late budding varieties survived.