Feeding the Vines

Alex and Philip distributing the nutrients by hand

During last year's growing season it was obvious that we had a number of mineral deficiencies in the vineyard evidenced by discolouring of the foliage. For example magnesium deficiency turns pinot leaves red and low levels of Iron result in yellow leaves on the Chardonnay. This was confirmed by soil analysis which identified low levels of Iron, Magnesium, Phosphorus, Manganese, Molybdenum and Sodium. Whilst Boron levels were adequate its availability will be restricted due to the high pH of the soil caused by high levels of Calcium.

The main concerns are the Magnesium deficiency and the need to maintain adequate Boron which has a very significant role in bud formation and pollen production and viability. Together with Calcium, Boron also helps form strong cell walls enabling the vine to withstand disease. It also enhances the uptake of Potassium and Magnesium and is a basic contributor in nucleic acid, carbohydrate and protein synthesis.

Being organic we have to be very careful about what we use on the vineyard, but we have obtained permission from our certification body Organic Farmers and Growers (OF&G) to use soil applied Boron, and Sulphur which will also help lower pH levels and improve Nitrogen assimilation. Our agronomist, John Buchan recommended 25kg/ha of Sulphur, 10kg/ha of Boron and  125kg/ha of Magnesium.

As the vineyard has been so wet we have had to apply everything manually by walking up and down the rows scattering the granules by hand!

Preparing for Frost

This time of year the major issue for many vineyard managers is frost. As mentioned in previous posts, frost can have a devastating effect on a vineyard, especially in spring after bud break. Last year a nearby large vineyard lost nearly 70% of its crop as a result of exceptional frosts in May!

One of the downsides of global warming is that bud break now often occurs earlier in the year because of warmer temperatures in February and March and the vines are therefore more susceptible to spring frosts in April and May. This year is a good example with our Pinot varieties probably about 3 weeks ahead of where they would normally be. Last year the late frost in May went right the way through the vineyard. It wasn't a disaster for us as we weren't expecting any fruit in 2010, but it was certainly a wake up call.

This year we are experimenting with a number of measures to reduce the risk of frost damage. We are primarily focusing on the first 5 acres we planted in 2009 (Block A) as we hope to get our first harvest from this block later in the year. Our experiences in the next couple of months will help us to develop a plan for the whole vineyard for future years.

So what are we doing? Well first of all we have pruned the vines leaving long canes which we will prune further and tie down after the main risk of frost has gone. Frost damage will occur first at the end of the canes which can later be discarded, hopefully leaving the rest of the cane healthy. We have also left pruning the new blocks until later for the same reason.

Orchard Burner with Boujies in the rows

We have purchased a static Frost Guard machine which will be placed in the centre of the Block A. This is effectively a outdoor convection heater which warms a radius covering 50% of the block. We also have 20 orchard heaters for the bottom of the vineyard and 180 Boujies (large candles) which are going to be used to protect the outside rows and the corners.

Finally we plan to spray the vines with a valerian solution (biodynamic preparation 507), both before and after a frost. Valerian is a liquid made from the flowers of the herb valerian. It works by stimulating the plant's metabolism, effectively warming it up from the inside.

Valerian

Apart from the pruning process and the Valerian, none of this is very environmentally friendly which bothers me, but hopefully we will only have to use the various burners infrequently. At the end of the day the vineyard has to be economically sustainable.

We now also have a weather station which earlier this week reported a ground temperature  of minus 5C. We have configured it to send us text messages to wake us from our slumber once the temperature gets below 2C. If that happens in a couple of weeks time I will be out on the vineyard with Alex in the middle of the night lighting the orchard burners and the boujies......and praying!

Winter Pruning

Pruning is the main task in the vineyard during winter. This can begin once the leaves have dropped and therefore normally starts in late November and continues through to February.

There are many methods for pruning and training vines which is normally determined according to the climate and the variety of grape being grown. Different systems can help to increase exposure of the foliage to light, improve air movement through the leaf canopy (and therefore reduce the risk of mildew and botrytis) and control vigorous vines that produce too much foliage and not enough fruit. This is all part of canopy management, which refers to how the architecture of the leaf canopy can be manipulated in order to beneficially alter the microclimate around the vine.

In the UK the training system mostly used is cane pruning where the vine is pruned back each year to the trunk, leaving just one or two canes from the previous year, which then produce many more fruiting canes during the growing season. A spur from the trunk is also left (cut back to two buds) to produce new replacement canes for the following year. This is also known as the "Double Guyot" system. In the photograph above the canes have been left intentionally long until after the risk of frost in the Spring as buds will form at the end of the canes first. Once the risk as gone these will be cut back to 5 or 6 buds.

The new vines that were planted last May will be pruned back to just two buds above the graft to encourage root growth and produce a strong new shoot which will form the basis of the trunk for the following year.

So far we've pruned about 3,000 vines - only 18,000 to go!

Inaugural UK Organic Vineyards Meeting



The first meeting of UK organic and biodynamic vineyards was held at Laverstoke Park Farm, near Basingstoke today.

Speakers included Ben Raskin from the Soil Association, Will Davenport from Davenport Vineyards, Vinodh Krishnamurthy from Laverstoke Park and Jane Awty from the UKVA sustainability group. Representatives from nine vineyards, as well as the Soil Association and WineSkills attended the meeting.

The main topic of the day was spray programmes for organic vineyards and much debate took place about the use of sulphur, copper, seranade, compost teas and other treatments used for disease control.

It was agreed that a second meeting should take place next year towards the end of June with a focus on Biodynamics and the practical issues associated with using compost teas.

Mycorrhizal Fungi still appear to be working well

Mycorrhizal Fungi

When we planted the vines we dipped the roots in a product called Rootgrow, which is a mycorrhizal fungi from a company called PlantWorks. Mycorrhizal fungi normally occurs naturally in soil. It breaks down organic matter releasing nutrients particularly phosphates and can significantly increase root capacity. Unfortunately herbicides and modern farming techniques have significantly reduced the naturally occurring fungi. The idea with Rootgrow is to give new plant roots a kick start.

Last year we measured weight of the prunings from 100 vines that had been treated compared to 100 untreated vines for each variety which indicated that the product had resulted in nearly 10% additional growth. This year the results were similar overall but showed a significant variation between varieties:

Pinot Meunier  33% increase

Pinot Noir        11% decrease

Chardonnay     16% increase

The results for the Pinot Noir are probably misleading as most of the untreated block were very weak and therefore had to be pruned quite hard which artificially increased the weight of the prunings from the untreated vines.

Next years results should be more definitive. We will also try and measure the comparative quantity of fruit from the vines.

 

Never Mind the Weather

Nick Seymour and Alex with the Weather Station

We are now proud owners of a weather station which was delivered and installed at the vineyard yesterday by Nick Seymour.

The weather is of course a major factor in our ability to produce quality fruit. By building up weather patterns over a period of time it will help us to predict, and therefore manage, the risks of pests and disease. It will also allow us to understand how the timing of flowering, berry setting and ripening effects the quality of the grapes.

The data that is collected includes temperature (ground and air), relative humidity, wind speed and solar radiation. It is updated on the web every 30 minutes so we can see from the comfort of our homes exactly what the weather is doing at any given time. The station can also send text messages to warn us of falling temperatures and the risk of frost. When this happens we'll have to get up in the middle of the night and put in place frost protection measures, which will probably include lighting bougies (oil lamps) and driving the tractor up and down the rows with a frostbuster which is like a giant warm air convection heater!

Albury Vineyard features on BBC Radio Surrey

Much to my suprise I was contacted by BBC Radio Surrey last week who were keen to interview me about the vineyard. Having overcome my nerves, my vanity got the better of me and I agreed to be interviewed on a programme called "Dig It", BBC Surrey's anwer to Gardeners' Question Time.

For those of you who are desperate to hear the interview you can get to it by clicking on the following link. It's about 35 mins from the start and only lasts for about 5 minutes.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p00cf415/Gardening_05_12_2010/

No major cock-ups but I think that I was right not to pursue a career as a radio presenter!