Second Spray

Moore's Diamond, 4-6" shoots

What I did:
     Second spray (post-dormant), consisting of Nova and Mancozeb.

Comments:

     It was a bit of a breezy, cool day but 10 days since the last spray so I needed to get it done.  The worst thing about the wind was accidentally inhaling through my nose some nova dust.  I immediately went in and did a sinus rinse.  It was dumb not to take the precaution, and wore my mask after that.  I mixed 1 1/2 gallons, which was sufficient.
     It had been a very cool, rainy weekend.  We even had a fire in the fireplace on Saturday.  It cleared off Sunday afternoon, though, and turned cool with temps in the low to mid-30's.  Patchy frost predicted tonight.

DeCaunac

The grapes seemed to like it, however, as they really started to take off the past several days, probably trying to catch up to seasonal norms.  Most varieties still seem behind and there was more winter damage on parts of the vines than I had realized.  I did some trimming before spraying and removed some more dead parts.  I still have the 3 vines that need to be removed, though two have growth at the bottom and I will cut off and remove the upper parts.  I also trimmed away basal growth on most plants, though of course as I was spraying I spotted more I will need to remove.

New grapes on DeCaunac

The St. Croix is only in its second year but really put on the grapes.  I removed them and will continue to do so if more come on so it will continue to develop good root growth.  I also removed any grapes from the Cayuga Whites, which are looking good though one died off the upper part but has strong growth down below.

Cayuga White, 2nd year

I really love this time of the year with the vineyard, when the leaves just start to come on and the new grapes begin to form.  Midsummer is probably the time I like the least, when the Japanese Beetles are in full force chewing up everything, vines are growing out of control and it's too damn hot to hardly care!

It was interesting looking at the different growth patterns, which can be determined even in the early growth stages.

Frontenac

In the Frontenac seen above, you can clearly see the strong upward growth tendency.   The Concords seem to grow helter skelter, wherever they want.

A row of Nortons

The Nortons still seem like they could use another year of development before I try to harvest any.  I may let the largest two plants develop grapes and remove them from the rest, which look more like two year vines than 4th year.