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2005 Second Leaf 4-21-05 So, another year in the vineyard begins. Before I really get started, I have opted to build a separate page for the year 2005 so the pictures will hopefully load a little faster for you. If you're like me you will appreciate this rather than sit and wait for all the pictures to load on a single page. First off, let me back track to January 2005. Started preparing ground for new grape root stock to be planted in the coming spring. Ripped the target area as deep as I could and got some clover and ryegrass planted in the middles in all the previously planted grapes and the new rows I intend to plant this spring. Not much to do now until February pruning on the first batch. Feb 2005 Managed to hobble through the pruning process as best I could. Most all the shoots on each cordon arm were pruned back to 2 buds, but a couple of rows were pruned with 6-8 buds left on the canes rising from the cordon arms. I did this mainly as an experiment to see the difference in the two types of pruning.
At any rate, I set up 4 additional new rows. Three will be full rows and the extras will be planted in permanent row position and dug up individually and transplanted as needed. 4-9-05 New root stock arrived yesterday and the planting crew showed up at 7;30 this morning. (Richard, Sheila, Cameron, Zack, and Marie). All 185 plants were set, watered in and all the T-- posts installed in 10 1/2 hours. Long hard day, but rain was in the forecast so we worked extra hard to get them all in before the rain hit. Alas, no rain, so Sheila and her cousin planed to come back the next day and get all the grow tubes installed. Grandsons, Cameron and Zack spent the night. 4-10-05 Rolled the kids out of bed at 6'oclock this morning and had breakfast and waited a little while on the other help. Gave up waiting and Cameron, Zack, and myself started putting the tubes on. Cameron and me did most of the work, as all Zack wanted to do was ride the 4-wheeler and play. After 8 1/2 hours all the tubes were on so Cameron and I started giving all the new plants a good drink . Don't know yet how we missed out on the rain, but it sure missed our place.
4-11 –05 Richard and Sheila showed up today and we ran the cordon wire to the new rows and planted 72 tomato plants and some radishes and lettuce in the garden. Sure was glad for all the help. light rain during night 4-12-05
4-13-05 
watered for 8 hrs
hopefully will help with bud break some are slow to break it seems.
Ordered the drip irrigation supplies for the new grapes. Planted about an
acre of cantaloupes and some other stuff in the garden ,then started weeding
around older grapes and removing suckers from trunks. This will take me a
while!!!!!!!!!!
4-18-05
4-19-05 Don't care if it does rain, I have to irrigate today as large cracks are showing up in the vineyard floor, so I know it's getting dry. Irrigation time is 12 hours, 4-21-05
4-30-05 Sprayed vineyard with 50 gal tank mix of Nova and 1 lb of Dithane 75. Couple of days early , but ha ha 60% chance of rain on 5-02-05 the day I'm supposed to spray. We'll see. Irrigation supplies got routed to the wrong hub so they are scheduled for delivery on 5-02-05 also. I plan to get that installed as soon as I can when I receive it. 5-01-05 Finally started raining , and it's the good slow soaking type. Good thing I sprayed early. 5-06-05 UPS finally arrived but the only thing I received in the line of irrigation supplies was the poly pipe. I guess the extra handling from being routed wrong had its toll on the shipping wrap as it was badly damaged and all the small parts like emitters, valves, and connections were missing, so now I have another delay in setting up my new rows. I got the pipe in place and hopefully the other needed items will be here soon. The new growth on the newly planted vines is looking pretty good. I have to dig up one of the older vines and transplant one of the new extras in its place today. Still haven't noticed any bugs in numbers sufficient to warrant pesticide application and that's a good thing. Daily temperature is climbing into the high 70's now and nights are staying in or near the 50's. Things are looking good. I plan to start pinching the grapes clusters off next week and hopefully a couple of the neighbor kids can help with that. I will be leaving at least 1 cluster on the more vigorous vines and maybe some of my relatives will try making some jelly from these to see how it turns out. 5-10-05 UPS finally delivered the rest of my irrigation stuff yesterday evening so today I worked on getting water to the new root stock. Took a couple of long breaks today but still managed to get all the emitters installed and water dripping by 8 pm. We got about .2 of an inch of rain day before yesterday and was glad to get it. I'm going to leave the water on the new stock till about midnight tonight. and get back to tying shoots ,pinching blossoms and suckers tomorrow. 5-11-05 Pinched blossoms and suckers all day today. This is a slow process and very boring. Pinching is a lot faster than trying to use pruning shears , but my fingers are so sore I can't even scratch. No doubt about it , I gotta find me some help with this process. 5-20-05 Well,
here it is 9 days later and I'm still pinching blossoms. Hey, the vineyard isn't
the only thing I have to do around here
5-26-05 Been busier than a cat on a tin roof for the past couple of days. Temperature has been soaring into the 90's and the newly planted root stock started getting cooked inside to gro tubes. I would liked to have had them in the tubes for another week but had to work like crazy to get them all off and sweet talk the tender shoots and get them ready for making the climb to the cordon wire. Quite a few of the ones with the most growth were cooked to the point of having to start out with just a green leaf on one of the buds. Oh well, at least none have died and I was able to save quite a few that had the longer shoots. Maybe half of the 185 new plants were damaged to the point of ending up with 4-6 inches of good growth to start over with, so I guess I'm in fairly good shape. The older vines have been smiling and growing like crazy with the heat and humidity being like it has been. Some have as much as 3 feet of new growth and I've started cutting some of it back like on a hedge. May have to thin some of the leaves in order to get good spray coverage with the fungicide and pesticide applications. Needless to say, it's been hectic for the past few days, and we are way behind on rainfall for this time of year. 6-05-05 Nothing new to report really, other than the nice rain we got last night. Still we are a little or 7 inches short for the year. First time ever in recorded history we didn't have a tornado in the state for the month of May. (this is a good thing ) Took a trip through the vineyard this morning and found 3- 4 vines that I have to tie back up because of wind last night. Everything else looks good. I may get a chance to go fishing this month, with some of the kids. Life is great! 6-10-05 sprayed vineyard with Nova fungicide and 2 1/2 oz of sevin per gal 6-13-05
I found a couple of the older vines that are showing some weird coloration around the edges of the leaves. Last year , around this time of the month there were 2-3 of the vines that showed this coloration but I didn't get a chance to really try to find out for sure just what was causing the problem. I have taken the samples in these pictures to send in to the lab and just see what it is and maybe how to correct it. The color is actually a red that feathers in toward the middle of the leaves and the outer edges are more brown. The problem seems to be worse on the bottom leaves and I guess it attacks the newer growth and moves up the limbs in varying degrees. We got a nice rain last night and I left some of the moisture from the rain on the samples. I found a picture on a website that was similar as far as I could tell, but you know how some of the colors are on different monitors. Their cause for this coloration was listed as Pierce's Disease, caused by "sharpshooters" ( goofy looking little insect). When I get some results back from the lab I will list them for your information. 7-31-05 Houston, we have lift off, verasion is almost complete.! Here's a few shots of some of the clusters I left, just to test and maybe make some jelly. First Brix test showed sugar level at 16. Plan to test again in 1 week.
8-05-05 First Brix test was on 7-28 second test was done on 8-01-05. Tested 17 and tested again today 8-05-05. Tested 18.2 so I harvested with the help of a good friend and his wife. She has promised me a sample of the jelly she intends to make. Didn't take any pictures and I should have. Majority of clusters were real nice bunches and fairly large and tightly closed. Harvested approximately 130 lbs or so. 4 1/2 buckets crammed full. Left a random cluster throughout the vineyard so I can continue testing sugar levels for future reference. 8-09-05 Brix test was right at 20 today so I intend to pick the remaining grapes any day now. At least I have a general idea when to expect the grapes to be ready for harvest. I have been told I need to get a PH testor also , to test acid content, as this is a critical variable in wine grapes. Money money money, every time ya turn around there's something to spend it on. 10-03-05 Well here it is October. Grapes are all gone and still lots of green vegetation so I've been spraying fungicide to fight the mildew. I had a terrible time trying to figure out if I still needed to keep different fungus infections in check and especially mildew problems. I really felt I needed to keep spraying even though the grapes had been harvested, but I had lots of trouble finding someone that could say yes to my ideas. finally got and answer from a forum I frequent that said definitely and mildew can affect next springs buds. I've been using sulphur and mancozeb alternately for this protection, until the temps start staying below 70' consistently during the day. We've been having 80+ and high humidity, which is prime time for mildew infestations. Be glad when it frosts and all the leaves fall. Put out a little lime on the newly planted rootstock as my soil sample showed a ph of 6.3 on this plot.Hopefully this will bring it up to about 6.9 - 7.0. Haven't lost any more of the 185 new plants other than the one that never budded out after planting. Time to drain my drip system and get ready for freezing weather.
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I do have it all done except 4 rows now . We got a good rain a few days ago and
the vines are growing pretty good now. Some of the new plantings are beginning
to stick out the tops of the gro tubes so I'll have to start removing the tubes
pretty quick now. I took the camera down to the vineyard this morning and hoed
the weeds out of 2 rows of the new plantings. Took a few pictures to show
.
