At a time of year in the vineyard when we might expect a fair amount to be going on – destemming, feeding, tying up, that sort of thing, events are taking place off-stage rather than on, you might say. Truth be told there aren’t enough leaves to feed them, nor stems to remove, on account of the great tragedy yet to be given a name.
It is the process of trying to name and understand what killed / is killing our vines, that forms the off-stage part of the drama. Our agronomist, who has the distinct advantage in all this of being a cheerful sort of chap, has visited the vineyard. He spent quite a bit of time digging around, taking soil samples, looking at what few leaves there were, cutting off a few canes (as in photo above – could this be the dreaded trunk disease?), that sort of thing.
He gave me a tentative opinion as to the problem but, understandably, didn’t want to commit himself without further analysis. On the face of it with the evidence before him, he was as puzzled as we were. Which was nice in one way because it suggested we weren’t totally stupid. He was puzzled by the lack of any pattern (as I mentioned last time), as we have been. Not logical, Jim, as Spock might have said, when confronted by our vineyard deaths.
He dug up a few apparently dead vines and examined the roots and pronounced them unhealthy, well, dead actually. He cut off some bits and also parts of the vine and said he would send them away for analysis at a laboratory. Blimey, sounds expensive*
In the meantime, he would commit what thoughts he had to paper and send it to me in the next few days. He was as good as his word. Along with his early thoughts he attached an article, ‘How to manage trunk disease’. Not encouraging because, as I understand it and I have to say I didn’t understand much more having read the article, but what is clear is that ‘trunk disease’ is a very bad thing to get.
If you were a lover of paradox or deep, deep irony, you could say trunk disease is the numero uno of vineyard diseases. It shows no early signs of being there, it strikes at mature vines, without any clear reason for doing so, except it affects vines under stress. Oh and it kills them stone dead.
Bloody hell, where we are, you will remember from previous blogs, could be renamed vines-under-stress land. Between the wind, the cold and frost, an awful lot of rain before and after Christmas, followed by drought in April and May and some questions about the soil (is it too acidic) I think we meet most (all?) of the criteria for being ‘under stress’.
That said we didn’t seem to have any problems up to this point. And, to repeat myself, the Rondo vines which are the worst affected now, were our best-cropping vines in 2018. So I read the article, swallowed hard and read the rest of the email.
In an effort to be positive, Mark had written, “All is not lost but we need to act sooner rather than later if you are to save the rest of the vines and also your other varieties, but at least we can now manage and control it.”
Full marks (no pun intended) I thought for trying to combine optimism with realism. He also wrote, “we (I took comfort in the pronoun) also need to ensure that everything is in place going forward and that we start a fungicide and nutrition programme to reduce stress within the vineyard for future years.”
So of course I agreed to him sending off a sample for analysis to confirm or deny his judgements. Cost £150. Not too bad. But then a week or so later I got another email from Mark explaining that the lab wanted a whole bleedin’ vine to analyse. Something about examining the junction between something and something (you’d never read this blog for actual technical information / advice would you? More of a touchy, feely experience).
Bloody hell, I thought (again), a whole vine. But OK, if that’s what the science demands so be it, but please, I replied to Mark, don’t take a live one, I can’t afford to lose another vine even to science. So I think we agreed to take either an actual dead one or one very close to it.
As we approach the middle of July I can report that I believe a whole vine has been despatched to the lab and I await their verdict. Obviously I’m hoping it won’t be the champagne of all diseases, in trunk disease, but if it is then at least we have an explanation and, with that, some possible strategies for dealing with it in the future.
Meanwhile in the outside world, as represented to me courtesy of the WineGB website, a number of topics are filling the airwaves. Much of it about lockdown, what can and can’t be done. But also an issue that isn’t going to worry me, not that it would have anyway us being (thank God) non-commercial. A veritable wine-lake of what else, wine, from the 2018 vintage. And now a perfect storm of not being able to sell it in lockdown. And even when it can be sold, how to do so without flooding the market and hence ruining the reputation and price points for English and Welsh wine. And they’re not even supposed to be discussing the topic as it contravenes price-fixing regulations.
Reading all this I’m almost – almost – grateful we won’t have to worry about such matters. And I see this morning (Tuesday) our old friends ‘kites as bird-scarers’, A chap asking if anybody has any experience of the effectiveness of same. I could have replied and shared our not-entirely-successful experience of these. But before I could get in there, another vineyard owner replied, “yes, they work really well but you do have to remember to move them frequently or the birds get used to them.”
Ours spent more time buried nose-first in the ground or wrapped round a post, than in the air. The fact we weren’t on-site to unravel them, didn’t help either but, once more, we won’t be worried about bird-scaring or even netting what we get at harvest time, because there won’t be much of a harvest for us. Every cloud, you know. And if you’re arguably the most northern of vineyard owners with vines under stress, as a matter of course, then you need to spot the silver linings of this world.
*So far not too bad.