Now this really is a first. Three vineyard blogs in a row. I said that two together was unusual but this is unique. And the reason is threefold. One, there’s a lot been going off. Two, I still need the writing as therapy to cope with all that is going off. Three, I have slightly better news, at least in my over-full head it’s better news. And I’ve included the photo above to remind me of the good side of the vineyard – the view.
The last blog was all doom and gloom but since then, and that’s only a week ago, I feel a little more optimistic about our vineyard. My first bit of ‘light’ is going to seem very odd. In an effort to be proactive, to seize back some kind of contro after the recent disasters I have taken a number of actions. Some of these were on my list as in last blog.
One action that was on the list was to send off the diseased leaves to an agronomist. I did that along with a soil sample (the results of which I’ve yet to receive). His report suggests we have something called grey rot or grey mould. It’s a form of botrytis (I’ve learned quite a lot over these last few weeks and that always helps the feeling of stopping life spinning out of control). I’d heard of downy mildew and powdery mildew, they’re very common in vineyards and are frequently sprayed against.
My version wasn’t identified until now and definitely not sprayed for. But the comfort was that I had (I think) identified the cause for my sad-looking vines. Knowledge is power, as they say. The only downside to this knowledge is that you have to wait a year to see if you’ve got the right ‘diagnosis’ and taken the correct course of action. This annual cycle is one of the most difficult to cope with when you’re trying to learn about the best way of growing grapes and making wine. Too big a gap, chronologically speaking, for effective learning.
Another action from my list, in the last blog, was to order more vines. I’ve ordered 50 more Regent vines. In so doing I had a conversation with my vine supplier who also has a vineyard in these parts. If you look on the internet his vineyard – Ryedale Vineyards – is reckoned to be the most northerly commercial vineyard in the UK. In talking to John, when I told him about our troubles, he immediately said, everybody is having the same problem.
I didn’t ask him what he meant by ‘everybody’ I was just hugely relieved to hear others were having similar problems. Misery loves company, as my grandma used to say. He said I’ve been spraying weekly over the last couple of months, battling against the disease.
I also did something I’d never done before, I looked at the Met Office’s website to check the weather for June. My pal Nick reckons this is where the trouble started. He had suggested diseases start in warm wet weather. John’s greater knowledge said clearly it was cool wet weather that was the problem. Temperatures of 15 or 16 degrees being the ‘perfect’ partner to wet weather. Sure enough looking back to June there was the summary of that month’s weather. Cool and very wet.
Next year, assuming I have vines that produce grapes, I will know a bit more about disease-inducing weather and be hopefully more proactive. Hopefully. I certainly won’t be thinking, as I have thus far, I don’t need to worry about disease because the wind will protect us.
I may be proving right one opinion from the WineGB website from a chap who said, wind keeping disease away, was ‘a complete fallacy promoted by people who had been foolish enough to plant in windy setting’. There was a hint of snottyness about his opinion (one not shared by my vine supplier and other knowledgeable people). He was also very negative about our ‘record-breaking’ height.
He suggested, continuing in his ‘I know a lot more than you’ way, planting in a less exposed position. Duh, we don’t have one. Windbreaks, duh, we already have them. When I pointed it out he changed his tune to you’re too high up but ‘admire your bravery’ kind of line. Then said something about no wonder we had problems at this height (660 ft) trying to cultivate ‘sun-loving, Mediterranean vines’. Actually these are not, they’re Northern European plants cultivated to be grown is non – Southerly conditions. I didn’t find him helpful. Fortunately others were more help.
The company that makes the spray fertiliser I gave our man to use tried their best but couldn’t say whether it was suitable for vines because they’d never used it in that way. Fair enough. He also said he didn’t think it would harm the grapes with the slight proviso that the boron in the mixture might burn the leaves if applied on a sunny day. As I explained I can’t ask our man when he sprayed because this might imply I was blaming him, which I am not. But again something to be wary of next year if I spray again.
So as it stands with possibly another month (maximum) of ripening time it looks like the Rondo (red) have definitely had it and the Solaris (white) might make a few bottles). I won’t make any decisions about whether to net the Solaris until probably this time next week. If nothing has improved then we will let the birds have the grapes, shrivelled and mouldy though they may be. Bloody ironic when you think of all the trouble we went to last year to keep them away.
So there we are. The agronomist is actually paying us a visit next week so he may have more to say when he sees the vines in situ rather than as a photo. Be sure I will keep you informed if anything changes or even if it doesn’t. But on a positive note we’re feeling a bit better than we were two or three weeks ago. Hope the graph continues upwards.
PS. In the meantime Mrs Summerhouse continues to experiment with blends of last year’s crop – of which we have plenty.