Pruning & Green House in Full Swing

Freddy is still pruning his way through our 70 acres of vineyard and will probably continue until the beginning of April, just before bud break. What is most exciting is the green house, which is in full swing. The Norton cuttings have been collected, snipped at both ends, and planted in the green house.

While it’s all pruning out in the vineyard, Freddy is always thinking about the health of the vineyard in its entirety. For instance, it’s not just the vines that go dormant. Did you know that various funguses and diseases go dormant in the vineyard as well? We call this “over wintering” and it’s commonly seen with diseases such as black rot, powdery mildew, and downy mildew.

Various diseases (such as the three named above) tend to be found in unpicked fruit. Occasionally, not every cluster is harvested and some remain well into the winter. The fruit begins to shrivel and fall apart, and disease will collect and proliferate. As the temperature drops, the fungus or bacteria will go dormant and wait for the right conditions. For instance, a particular warm day in the middle of winter with plenty of sunshine could be just right for disease growth.

Pruning provides an opportunity to look for any disease that has over wintered, and we can remove it by pruning if we find any. Eventually, all the cuttings will be raked from the vineyard and burned to prevent any inoculums from spreading. With Freddy’s 20 years of experience and his keen eye, there isn’t too much cause for alarm. What he doesn’t cut away, he will spray for at the earliest possibility. The vineyard crew is always hard at work here at Chrysalis Vineyards.