Wine-Grower-News #130 June 11, 2010 Midwest Grape & Wine Industry Institute: http://www.extension.iastate.edu/Wine Information in this issue includes: How Wet – Dry is it? Baker’s Dozen Excellent Weather Sites Worth Bookmarking Vigor, Vigor, Vigor – What to do? Missouri ICCVE Summer Tailgates Scheduled for June Show n Tell (check out my visit to Wyldewood Cellars in KS) 10 Elderberry Wine Recipe’s Notable Quotables Articles of Interest Neeto-Keeno WWW Stuff Calendar of Events How Wet – Dry is it? (Above) 6-11-10 year to date U.S. national weather service % of normal rainfall map: http://www.srh.noaa.gov/rfcshare/precip_analysis_new.php 1 Baker’s Dozen of Excellent Weather Sites Worth Bookmarking 1. ISU Extension Weather: http://www.extension.iastate.edu/weather/ 2. U.S Weather Service – good national and local forecasts, maps, climate, etc.: http://www.weather.gov/ 3. USGS Water Watch – good national/state info & maps of flood and drought conditions: http://waterwatch.usgs.gov/ 4. National Climatic Data Center: http://www7.ncdc.noaa.gov/CDO/cdo 5. Climate Watch, Univ. of IL: http://mrcc.sws.uiuc.edu/cliwatch/watch.htm 6. U.S. Weather Central: http://www.weathercentral.com/weather/us/ 7. U.S. Weather Underground: http://www.wunderground.com/US/ 8. USA Today: http://www.usatoday.com/weather/ 9. MSN Weather: http://weather.msn.com/ 10. Yahoo Weather: http://weather.yahoo.com/ 11. The Weather Channel: http://www.weather.com/ 12. AccuWeather: http://www.accuweather.com/ 13. Famers Almanac Weather: http://www.almanac.com/weather Vigor, Vigor, Vigor – What to do? The soils of the Midwest are known around the world for their ability to grow vigorous bumper crops. Unfortunately, highly fertile soils produce highly vigorous vines. Vigor management is a common topic of discussion as growers contact me every day. The phrase “Big Bush” comes up often. Unfortunately, what we know now would have been very handy 10 years ago when we started planting all these vineyards. Many of our vineyards could have easily used a 9’-10’ spacing between their vines instead of the commonly used 6’ – 8’ plant spacing used in other regions of the U.S. Like the old saying goes; Location – Location – Location means everything for a vineyard. Here are some options you can consider to slow down some of that VIGOR in your vineyard: 1. The act of combing high wire canopies downward provides a small amount of devigoration as the terminal tips are pointed downward. 2. Increasing the crop load. Monitoring several vines with several different crop loads will give you a better idea of the approximate crop load they could be carrying. Leaving a heavy crop load and then cluster thinning at veraison can be used on “monster” vines 3. Reduce or completely eliminate nitrogen applications. 4. Apply herbicides in the fall after the first frost to eliminate Dutch White Clover from the vineyard floor. Research has show that a 30% or greater stand of clover (a nitrogen producing legume) in a grass pasture can provide approximately 75-100 lbs of slow release nitrogen to the grass, eliminating the use of nitrogen applications in grass pastures. This concept also works with lawns. 5. Reduce or completely eliminate supplemental irrigation. 6. Narrow up the weed/grass free area under the wire. I have seen several mature vineyards allow the grass to grow right up the trunk without detriment to the vines. Note, these were all “mature” vineyards growing on “vigorous” sites. 7. Planting a cover crop like oats, spring wheat, spring rye, or spring barley at veraison will provide 2 competition to reduce late season vigor and promote the winter hardening process. These grain crops will not produce seed and will die in the winter providing soil cooling shade (delaying bud break) and soil erosion protecting mat the following spring. 7. Growing out vigor diversion canes (aka- “kicker canes”) from the base of the plant each season and training them along a low training wire can be used to both reduce some of the vigor and produce additional clusters if so desired. 8. Dividing the single canopy into a double canopy system by either switching over a Single High Wire to a Geneva Double Curtain or turning a Vertical Shoot Positioned (VSP) system into a Lyre system. 9. Increasing the crop load by turning a VSP system into a divided vertical canopy by converting to a Smart–Dyson or a Scott Henry system. 10. Grafting low to moderate vigorous vines onto the present vigorous rootstocks. 11. Root pruning by running a knife or rolling coulter approximately 15-20” deep and approximately 15” – 20” along one or both sides of the row has shown some promise in reducing shoot growth. This practice has not proven very predictable. As you can see, we have many tools we can use to help control vigor in the vineyard. Dr. Nelson Shaulis at Cornell University came up the with Geneva Double Curtain (GDC) in the 1960’s as a way to increase yields, control vigor and increase fruit quality of juice grapes. Maybe we need to come up with the Ames Triple Curtain (ATC) to do the same thing here at ISU! Missouri ICCVE Summer Tailgates Scheduled for June What: ICCVE Vineyard Tailgate Meetings Sponsored by: The Institute for Continental Climate Viticulture & Enology Guest Speaker: Turner Sutton, Ph.D., Plant Pathologist with North Carolina State University. Meeting locations, dates and times: · Monday, June 14, Crown Valley Winery, Ste. Genevieve, MO, 1 - 4 p.m. · Tuesday, June 15, Lynn Gay Farm, Hindsville, AR, 1 - 4 p.m. · Wednesday, June 16, Pirtle Vineyards, Kansas City, MO, 1 - 4 p.m. · Thursday, June 17, Les Bourgeois Winery, Rocheport, MO, 1 - 4 p.m. · Friday, June 18, Stone Hill Winery Rauch Farm, Hermann, MO, 10 - 1 p.m. Schedule and Directions: http://iccve.missouri.edu/events/vineyard-schedule2010.doc Further info: 573-882-6656 or [email protected] Show n Tell (Right) Concord “pea sized” grape berries. Heavy rains and cool weather during pollination significantly reduced berry set here in Central Iowa. 6-11-10 3 (Above) Tendrils of Wild Grape, Vitis (Above) Shoot scar of the Grape Cane riparia. The tendrils are touch sensitive so Gallmaker, Ampeloglypter sesostris that they grow more slowly on the side that (LeConte). The adult female weevil is in contact with an object. 6-11-10 deposits one egg in a hole she produces just above a node and then fills it with frass. This damage is seldom of economic importance. 6-11-10 (Above) Grape Phylloxera is starting (Above) Red Banded Leafhopper, to show up in Central Iowa. 6-11- Graphocephala coccinea on Wild 10 Grape, Vitis riparia. This is a common none economic insect often found on garden and ornamental plants. 6-11-10 Wyldewood Cellars On the way back from our Kansas/Texas trip last week, Paul Klodd (maker of the Netter Getter & Nuke-a-Weed) and I stopped by Wyldewood Cellars Winery located on the west side of I-35 at Mulvane, KS. This is the home office of Wyldewood Cellars. They also have wineries located at Paxico – KS, West Wichita – KS, Kansas City (Legends Mall) and the newest one in St. Joseph – Mo. The staff at the winery were very customer oriented and were very pleasant to talk with. It was 4 worth the stop. I would highly recommend stopping by the winery if you are traveling south on I-35 through Kansas. It is located on the southwest corner of the #33 exit. Wyldewood Cellars was first established in 1994 inside an old storefront in downtown Mulvane, KS by the brother and sister team of Dr. John and Mary Brewer. After a fire in 1999, the main location was moved out to I-35. Today the winery is famous for their elderberry juices and wines. John and Mary’s mother, Margaret Millican is the largest producer of Elderberry plants in the U.S. and is a recognized expert in propagating and crossbreeding elderberries. You can purchase plants from Margaret and her husband Jack by contacting them at 918-473-0797 or [email protected]. Wyldewood Cellars is the most recognized elderberry winery in the U.S. with a list of over 400 International awards. They currently sell over 40 different fruit and grape wines. They also have several elderberry growers they purchase from and have a elderberry patch growing next to their Mulvane winery. They also grow Marquis, Norton, Traminette and Chambourcin in their vineyard. (Above) Road entrance to Wyldewood (Above) Elderberry patch growing on Cellars Winery west side of winery. (Above) Outside event area with wedding (Above) Signs under the tasting room gazebo that looks out over the vineyard to counter. the south. 5 Above (Left & Right) are two tasting room counters with separate cash registers in the winery that enable the staff to serve large groups during busy times. (Above) Wyldewood Cellars has both a (Above) Looking out over the vineyard world and U.S. map on the wall that visitors from the gazebo. can place pins to locate where they are from and sign a guest book. The huge number of pins was impressive. (Above) This is an interesting marketing concept that I don’t remember seeing before in a winery. Customers can belly-up to this table and make their own gift box or basket. 6 10 Elderberry Wine Recipe’s 1. http://www.easy-wine.net/making-elderberry-wine.htm 2. http://winemaking.jackkeller.net/elderber.asp 3. http://www.grapestompers.com/recipes.htm#elderberry 4. http://www.homebrewit.com/recelderberry.php 5. http://scorpius.spaceports.com/~goodwine/elderberrywine.htm 6.