Vine Watch

Bang to the mouth 4- Leak Seeking Project update

2010-01-03T21:10:00.001+02:00

first published Friday, November 07, 2008

8 Nov: 12 noon. The Rastas are still in the tool shed.

Bang to the mouth 3

They say that timing is everything. On the evening of Thursday 6 November 2008 and the morning of Friday 8 it rained. Jake-n-Sam's crew completed the planting of the 3000 Viognier vines at 5 in the afternoon yesterday and it started raining at 7ish. The vines need 5 litres of water each in the first few days and (yippee) we've just had the equivalent of 10litres in the last 24 hrs - see graph and also http://www.thedawes.net/.
We've been praying for rain for months. The Winter here has been unusually dry, barely 30 litres per square metre per month for the past 4 months. Which is not good. We've spent a smallish fortune putting in a sophisticated irrigation system which depends on the dam at the bottom of the yard being full of - rainwater. This timely downpour is encouraging, as we have still to find where the system is leaking - I buried the pipes some weeks back confidant that there would be no need to ever see them again. Forever an optimist.
Nevertheless, this week has been a success.
Zakrey and I collected the vines on Monday. They slept overnight in some seaweed (Kelp) treated water to condition the roots and at 8 am on Tuesday 4 November Di and I planted the first 10 vines ourselves and then let Sam-n-Jake's planting crew do the remaining 2990. I fretted like a mother hen for an hour or so but could see that everything was under control and that Zakrey and Charles had the post plant watering system sorted and so retired for breakfast with Di, Jake, Al and Val (on their first trip to SA) and later Sam and one of the many Sam-n-Jake offspring and, oh yes Ben the dog.
It took 3 days to plant all the vines - 750 the first day, 1250 the second and the balance yesterday. About 5 of the crew and Zakrey are now tidying the yard and moving some of the bigger stones back in the vine line to act as mulch and storage heaters. It's still raining a little which is frustrating my leak seeking plans.
The next stage is to make sure that 'they' have taken and then cutback and fit grow tubes and then get the cordon wire and anchors fitted. For that I need to get Jamii Hamlin of Ecostake back to show me how to do it. I also need to record how we managed to be using stainless steel posts instead of timber... see later
When I was in paid employment,prior to my retardiment, as my Grandson says, I used to have a worry attack in the early hours - usually when the digital clock said 505; where I would mentally list all the down side things that I had to do on a project or administration of the company. I haven't had any of those moments for a year now.. BUT they've started again with the realisation of the work needed for this wine project.The pre-growing stages - ripping, staking, digging can be extended, delayed, mechanically intervened but once the vines start growing I will have to move at nature's pace. Cornflakes and tea and then leak seeking will begin.
15 mins later:
Zakrey, my Rasta vineyard manager (as he has taken to calling himself!), on seeing me leak seeking in the rain, from the shelter of his tool shed, said
"Hey boss-there's no need to water until Monday, stop worrying, at least the pump in the sky is working, do what I and I are doing - relax." (Rastas use 'I and I' instead of 'We'). I might knit myself one of those red green yellow hat things that Zakrey is so fond of,whilst I wait for the rain to abate.

The agis are planted

2009-10-30T12:48:00.000+02:00

Just finished planting the agapanthas

Catch Up 1 from Nov 13 2008

2009-10-25T23:04:00.001+02:00

Thursday, November 13, 2008
A wet bang to the mouth

Dwarskloof Farm – Greyton South Africa 13 November 2008:

It has rained solidly for almost 3 days. We had 55mm of rain on Tuesday; 72mm of rain Wednesday and, so far, in the first 5 hours of Thursday another 22mm. it continues. The vines were due to have their second drink on Tuesday a mere (forgive pun) 5mm. They have now had the equivalent of 6 months of rain – if it only worked like that. In 3 days the sun will bake the ground and I will be trying to get the irrigation system to work.
The result of this excess is that I now know that the water reticulation works and that the dam is full and that the gateway to the farm is/was blocked. Greyton too is cut-off and this merited a mention on the national TV (SABC 1, 2, 3). I laboured with the mini-digger for a couple of hours in the pissing rain and cleared a way BUT fear that now, 12 hours and 50mm of more rain later, that my toil was in vain
Talking of Blocks. Al 'n' Val has had to put off their adventure to the animal park at Inverdoorn until the water abates. We have broken into the emergency red and white wine stock (the unmarked 65p a bottle stuff).
It's almost a year to the day since the last once in a hundred year storm. Surely it should have been another 99 years?
The young vines look well though. They haven't been washed out of the ground and there is evidence of budding.

A South African farmer was interviewed tonight, on the SABC News, about the fact that his harvest of table grapes would more than likely be wiped out by the storm. He agreed with the reporter and smiled and shrugged and said 'hell that's nature'.
I await the dawn to see what havoc nature has wrought.
I feel most sorry for Al 'n' Val. Their first trip to SA and marooned with us. No Monopoly board games and dwindling emergency wine stocks.
Techie note:

55mm of rain is equivalent of 55litres per square metre. 55 litres is roughly 11 UK gallons. Each vine has a catchment of 1 square metre
Isn't that interesting?

General View of both fields 14 Oct 2009

2009-10-17T14:25:00.000+02:00

It's starting to look like a vineyard.
Both fields are now planted and we are into week 5 since budding started.
We've done quite a bit of tidying and weeding as you can now see.
Sulphur dusting for powdery mildew has been done to the left hand block.

It's Spring

2009-10-02T16:57:00.000+02:00

I'm trying not to be too bullish this year, after last year's not so good season - cooked vines/grow(death) tubes..
Progress has been good though - we've replanted the 1000 Viognier and have newly planted 2500 Temperanillo. And thumbs held (as they say here?) everything is budding and growing nicely. Most of the V side are already bushed into chickens and the T have got nice buds and some leaves. We've applied the brooder guano to the V and they've had 1 nice rain and 1 nice irrigation in the last 5 weeks and we hope to get to the same stage next week on the T. We've also spent a lot of time tidying up - getting rid of the thistles and knocking back the grass in areas. It almost looks like one of those manicured yards down Franschoek way. Almost.
Adminwise I'm nearly uptodate with the accounts. By the end of the weekend I will have answered all the accountants questions.
We've been gigging quite a bit and trying to be not as hectic as last year and also been on a tour of the west coast. More later.

Building The Brand

2009-09-25T03:13:00.001+02:00

white wine stones

13 August 2009 - oh dear oh deer

2009-08-13T11:40:00.005+02:00

There's not a great deal to worry about.

The red wine field is now complete and has a full complement of vines and we've had a nice lot of rain in July and August to settle them in and give them a good start once we hit Spring.

The white wine field is also planted out and we appear to have a few left over - a combination of 'extras' from the supplier and the fact that the rows are 'shorter'. Zakrey and crew are now extending the rows and cleaning the bankies - so by the time we get back to SA all the work will be done.

The seasonal rain has really helped to fill up the dam and soften the ground for planting. No grow tubes for this lot although yesterday, when I logged on to the webcam just after 5, there was a small herd of buck grazing in the direction of the new vines... see pic.

We can only hope that they haven't noticed the new vines.

Oh - nature we know thy sting!

Protection may still be needed.

and then we had rain - we planted red today oh boy

2009-08-02T12:21:00.003+02:00

3000 holes in the vineyard western cape......

27 July Progress Report

2009-07-27T12:45:00.003+02:00

We are on schedule (as the yanks say):

Tempranillo field has been prepared.
The 900 replacement vines have been planted in the Viognier field by 12 July 2009)
The holes for 2700 Tempranillo will be complete by 30 July
The vine sticks for same will be collected and planted by 8 August
The Viognier field has been overcropped with Lupin and Clover and the bankies dressed with horse manure
We have some reasonable rains ~ 63mm in July - yippee, and the dam is refilling
Life moves on

Zakrey Digs a Trench

2009-06-10T00:49:00.009+02:00

We also moved the camera a little - to see if we can spot the lupin and clover growth

5 May 2009 Update day 183 (6 months)

2009-05-05T17:18:00.003+02:00

We are back in UK.
The remaining (in SA) vines are 183 days old - exactly 6 months. We stopped irrigation about 10 days ago and autumn is setting in. The leaves are yellowing. We've lost 927 vines - far more than we wanted to ...but... we have a recovery plan.
The statistics at the 6 month mark:

625 mm of rain and irrigation (includes 40mm of rain in April at last RAIN!)
620 hours of good sunshine (that's only 3.8hrs of sunshine per day - which I still think is understated by at least 100%). It is much cooler.
Looks like 1mm of water = 1hour of sunshine (or 2/3 hours

The 2,100 vines still alive look well though and are now starting to go dormant for a while.

The plan for the next 6 months:

Finish the stakes and anchors for the Tempranillo field - by 10 May - the stakes are complete already.
Complete the irrigation system for the Tempranillo field by 25 May. 70% complete already
Cut back dead vines - done
Put 2 spades of donkey/horse manure on each vine - by end of May
Plant Lupins/clover bewteen the rows as an overcrop - by end of May
After leaves drop cut back all vines to 3/4 buds - start mid June; complete mid July
Replace dead vines - start and finish in July
Spread Cormorant Guana between vines on the bankies - August
Plant 2500 Tempranillo vines - last 2 weeks in August and first 2 weeks in September.

I know - It's a pretty boring report.

We know what we are doing now............ famous last words?

How do you become an expert at making tea?

2009-03-21T11:29:00.002+02:00

I am often asked (enough to warrant a comment) ‘do you know anything about growing grapes and making wine?’ The insinuation being that one has to be an expert or employ an expert before doing anything. A lot of new wine makers in SA (and elsewhere) are, like me, second career chaps. Established vineyards are family run and the sons and daughters learn at the foot of the parent.

The prerequisite has to be land and space and the ability to ask questions and read books. Other winemakers and vineyard farmers are all too eager to share their knowledge and for that I am thankful. The ability to digest the knowledge and apply some judgment has to be what I’m an expert at. I’ve worked as an Engineer for over 40 years and that’s just what I do- digest, plan, deliver. A wine farming project is an engineering project – a new plan and a new glossary. It depends in which industry the project is deployed and it’s always better if you know a little about the subject and also in the case of farming to be aware of what nature can throw at you…. see previous blogs. I hadn’t realised just how fickle nature can be. I’ll be more comfortable once the grapes are picked and I can start de-stemming, crushing, racking, cooling, fermenting, bottling, boxing - yes - doing real engineering.

I once read a ‘manual’ on how to make of cup of tea. It said ‘put one teabag in the cup, stand for 3 minutes, remove teabag, add milk and sugar to taste’ . There was no mention of water or the fact that it had to be boiled OR if it was the cup or the person standing for 3 minutes.

We had our first grapes 2 days back. The vines that were ‘leftover’ from the Viognier field plant, and are the spares for the deaths we have had this year, were trench planted at the bottom of the field. They have been left to their own devices – no irrigation, no grow tubes, no trellis or support, no pruning, no weeding… just left to go bush and find their own water. They are perfectly healthy and are producing lovely sweet Viognier grapes . A little small maybe, but next year, with the benefit of some expert care, they’ll be much better.

Today it rained: 9mm of the stuff

2009-03-09T01:06:00.005+02:00

3 weeks is a long time in viticulture

2009-03-08T15:11:00.004+02:00

It’s been a while. But - I’ve been too busy doing the project to have any time to write the thing up. Isn’t that the big problem with blogging and face-booking? They become an alternative to life.
‘What are you doing?’
‘I’m doing my Face Book and ‘blog’
‘What are you doing now?’
‘I’m still doing my FB and b’

My last brief blog and entry in FB was the baffling reference to ‘dark tubes’. We started the tube stripping on the 12th of Feb (a couple of days before the Charlie James Gang’s visit.) and I was becoming worried about the high % of dead and struggling vines inside the tubes. I did a complete survey and the results, expressed graphically here show the % dead in each row. The struggling vines are also about the same %wise (sorry about that % thingie).

In brief: out of 3055 vines we have 455 dead (15%) and 343 struggling (11%). The majority of deaths/strugglers are in the middle 2 blocks of the yard and nearly all in dark tubes.

We had been told to expect a maximum of 5% deaths so faced with a potential of 26% we were pretty well convinced that something was up. My belief was that the dark printed tubes intensified the heat in those hot days we had in December and January and in effect cooked and killed the young delicate shoots.

We managed to contact Johan Wiese of V & G Nurseries (the vine suppliers) and he arrived as soon as he could on Monday 23 Feb. He more or less confirmed our prognosis. It is worth adding here his further observations.

We had a combination of 4 things that had gone wrong. I now start to understand the word terroir – not a small french evil dog – but the local conditions.

We planted late. November instead of August/September. Not our fault but the fact that our contractor decided it was too dry/too wet/too whatever – so didn’t turn up at the right time. We decided then to plant in November when Jake and Sam’s crew were available and we were back in the country.
We then decided to fit grow tubes in December to see if we could gain a year and get the vines to the cordon wire quickly. We should have fitted the tubes in October when it was cooler and the ‘forced’ vine shoots would have been strong and sap system established by the time the heat came in December and January. It would have been better to not have fitted tubes at all and just have let the vines go bush for the first year (as we did with the surplus vines- all doing well -by coincidence). We are now stripping tubes from the vines that haven’t quite made the wire yet to give them a chance to get some bushy leaves over what remains of the summer.
We had good rains in early November and the good ground in the middle 2 blocks retained more moisture in the first few weeks of growth than the poor rocky ground in the 2 outer blocks. That sounded good to me BUT no said our expert. The easy to get at water in the middle sections made the roots lazy and weaker than the roots in the rocky areas. Thus the combination of weaker rootstock, delicate shoots in dark tubes and ……
…..hot days meant that we killed the vines.

Easy to see now with hindsight but probably, even with foresight, difficult to predict.

We are now recovering the situation with a new irrigation schedule of 16 litres of water every 7 days instead of 6 litres every 5 days. We are stripping off the tubes from the weaker vines now with the plan to have them all stripped by the end of March. Come winter we’ll cut back all the vines to 2 shoots and forget about the lost year, we’ll start again in September. We’ve ordered new vines and we’ll replace the dead ones in August. I must write to Johan W and confirm all this.

The Tempranillo field is being laid out now and this will be finished and the irrigation system extended by June ready for the planting in August/September. This time though we will let them grow into bushes (chickens) for the first year and only use tubes to protect from animals and chemicals – (if we need to). We’ll let nature take it’s pace.

Stripping and picking up tubes – Viognier field

The statistics: 8 March - Day 125;
425mm of irrigation/rain (very little of that is rain – as we’ve had the driest Dec, Jan, Feb for 10 years or more. Barely 10mm a month);
446 hours of good sunshine (whatever good is). Personally I think that the sunshine figure is understated by 100% at least as the software only registers sunshine hours if the ‘heat’ is greater than 75% of the max heat expected at this longtitude. The data logger however looks at lux (light) over a certain figure and logs that as sunshine hours and as such gives a number of hours almost 3 times what the heat hours are. I’m confused. I hope I haven’t confused anybody else.
The 2257 vines that are doing well are bushing very nicely at the cordon wire. Close up pictures will follow.

update mortality

2009-02-18T12:10:00.000+02:00

we think it may be dark tubes

Day 103 Vine Watch 14 Feb 2009

2009-02-15T23:15:00.001+02:00

Let’s get the stats. over first:
103 days of growth; 380mm of rain/irrigation; 379 hours of ‘good’ sunshine (whatever that is??).

We have started partially cutting back the tubes and ‘interviewing’ each vine. Zakrey and me have checked 1100 so far. The rest will be seen by end of play on Tuesday 18th. I must wear a hat.

Worryingly we have (in my view) quite a large number of vine deaths, and I am at a loss to understand why. I’m told that we should expect something like 5% but currently we are running at 10% deaths and another 10% sickly/struggling. I have a feeling that the ‘tubing’ in some cases has scorched/ burnt some of the young fragile vines. I will seek advice. The 80% that are thriving, look well and are starting to bush above the cordon wire. I think basically we planted too late and I’m not sure about the use of growth tubes.

Watering has been iffy. We have very little rain in the first 6 weeks of 2009, barely 10mm in January and so far not much more in February. Our dam is holding up quite well but we desperately need some nice wet rain. The pump motor has tripped a couple of times so am less confident about the automatic initiation. I think we need some feedback that the pump has actually started … must talk to ‘an expert’ on Monday.

February has been scorching hot (and typically windy) with the max temperature of 34.9 deg C and winds gusting to 45km/hr. The heat and wind take their toll on the vines and ourselves.

The weather averages:

	Avge Temp	Avge Wind	Sunshine
Feb to Valentine’s Day	22.8 (Mx 34.9/Mn 22.8)	19.2km/hr SE	3.6hrs/day; Max of 1221 Watts/M2
January	21.8(31.5/14)	16.4 ESE	3.5hrs/day; 1384 Watts/M2
December	22.5(34.1/13.8)	17.3 ESE	3.7hrs/day; 1368 Watts/M2
November	18.9(30.8/11.7)	17.6 ESE	3.27hrs/day; 1376 Watts/M2
October	16.9(30.9/6.4)	13.9 SE	1.8hrs/day; 1234 Watts/M2

Just remembered that the Webcam is working again- LINK to weather station and camera. We’ve had some lovely sunsets and skies this month.

I see the vines

2009-02-09T00:00:00.001+02:00

resized

I see the moon and so do the vines

2009-02-08T23:58:00.004+02:00

the moon is a balloon ( a strange word - doesn't look right with any spelling)

Vinerama

2009-01-24T13:08:00.001+02:00

before - when we had sails to have wind in (grammar?)

Kubota Rescue

2009-01-23T23:53:00.004+02:00

Vinewatch day 69 - 12th of January 2009

2009-01-12T10:42:00.002+02:00

Thought Emma might like to know:

69 days; 323mm of rain/irrigation; 243 hrs of good sunshine (whatever that is).

All vines tubed; approx 30% now out of the tubes.

Will start pruining, training and de-tubing (if there is such a verb) at day 80).

Weather prospect is still hot and sunny. We could do with some rain to top up the dam as each irrigation now is 18M3.

We have done a 'weeding' and are now doing a bit of byudy tidying, though I can't see it ever looking like one of those manicured yards in Franschoek. We would need 3 Zakreys.

The averages:

October

Average Temp
16.9(Max 30.9/Min 6.4)
Average Wind
13.9km/h;prev. SE
Average Daily Sun
1.8hrs; max of 1234 Watts/M2
November
18.9(Max 30.8/Min 11.7)
17.6km/h;prev ESE
3.27hrs; max of 1376 Watts/M2
December
22.5(Max 34.1/Min13.8)
17.3km/h;prev ESE
3.7hrs; max of 1368Watts/M2
January to 12th
21.8(Max30.9/Min16.2)
16.8km/h; prev SE
3.25hrs; max of 1384Watts/M2

Jake Prunes

2009-01-11T11:33:00.002+02:00

Am struggling with the blogger technology

Jake Gives a Pruning Master Class

2009-01-11T10:00:00.001+02:00

The Fleet

2009-01-01T22:59:00.001+02:00

Looks like a war grave yard?

2009-01-01T22:54:00.001+02:00

I hope not.

Christmas Day 2008

2008-12-31T16:51:00.001+02:00

New Year’s Eve 2008 – All tubed up

2008-12-31T16:10:00.002+02:00

It’s taken 20 days to make and tube the 3000 vines. We lost a week over Christmas (and the weekends!) so really only 12 working days. It’s not bad going, considering that Zakrey has done the last 1500 or so single handed… well almost – I did about 20 and made a 1000 tubes. Zakrey is worth his little Rasta weight in gold (moroccan?).

The statistics:
4 kilometres of tetrapak – weighing in at ~ a third of a tonne (360kg)
4 kilometres of sisal twine
40,000 staples
6 staple guns (4 defunct!)
3 pairs of scissors
0 cuts or grazes
Personally I walked 5 kilometres distributing tubes to the yard; and drove 520 kms to collect tetrapak from Kaap Agri in Grabouw as we/they ran out of the stuff 3 times.

I estimate that we already have 10% of the vines ‘out of the tube’.

See Di demonstrating the vine’s ability to recognise the cordon wire.
Tomorrow is a holiday (for Zakrey) and then on Friday the 2nd of January 2009 we start to weed and prune and train.

Who knows where the vine goes?

2008-12-31T13:43:00.002+02:00

Block A	The lowest/nearest the dam	Has 12 Rows of Viognier
	Rows 1 to 4 and 12 approx 350 vines in total	are VR642C on R110 rootstock
	Rows 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10,11 approx 400 vines	are VR1A on R110 (original SA stock)
Block B	Next Lowest	Has 7 Rows of Viognier
	approx 750 vines	are VR642C on R110 rootstock
Block C	Next to the top	Has 7 Rows of Viognier
	approx 750 vines	are VR642C on R110 rootstock
Block D	top most block	Has 11 Rows of Viognier
	approx 750 vines	are VR642C on R110 rootstock

Total of 3000 vines in 37 rows and 4 blocks.
Riveting stuff I hear Emma say.

You Tubes

2008-12-25T11:50:00.005+02:00

Thought you might like to see the results of 10 days in Grow Tubes.

It's also 52 days since the vines were planted.
The update on progress is that we have managed to get 2600 of the little beggars into grow tubes. We'll get the rest in early next week. It's the devil's own job getting people to come to work at this time of the year - isn't it Jake? Grow tube fitting has taken much much longer than expected and also much much more tetrapak. It's serendipity that the inner part of the tube is silvered which makes them act like sun tubes so that they don't get starved of sunshine whilst in their micro climates. In the last 12 days we've had 2mm of rain and the vines have had 3 irrigations of 5mm each time. This time the irrigation has been from the dam - hurray at last it all works - thanks to the long suffering Johan Barnard (and Zakrey of course).

The stats are: 270mm of water; 189 hours of good sunshine (whatever good sunshine is)

We start weeding and then pruning and training the vine to the cordon wire next week. Then when the vine is strong enough (pencil thick!) we'll strip the growtubes. It's all go here at Swallow Hill

swallows, vines, growtubes

2008-12-21T18:56:00.000+02:00

Thought you might like to see….

2008-12-15T18:28:00.001+02:00

…a picture of the other member of the gngbc – Jake Easton.
Eccentric? I think not.

Greyton Novelty Goatee Beard Club Member #2

Viognier – The Plan

2008-12-15T17:28:00.001+02:00

Here’s what we do each year for the next 3 years- plus the grow tubes of course in year 1, and - there will be 2 shoots going for the cordon wire. The loser dies.Brutal stuff!
I haven’t drawn in the trellis wires and to get an idea of scale- the cordon wire is at 1 metre and the 3 double trellis wire are at 300mm centres above the cordon. For those of you thinking in imperial (Christian units - as one of my mentors used to say): Cordon at roughly a yard and the other wires at 1 foot centres.

I didn’t know any of this 2 weeks ago. I’d read a couple of books over the last 18 months, but nothing really sinks in until you see the real thing and someone like Jake enthuses. We are at 50% of year 1 –if that makes sense?

14 Dec 2008: 40 days and 40 nights

2008-12-14T15:46:00.002+02:00

Headline statistics for the vines are 253mm of rain/irrigation and 153 hours of good sunshine (whatever good sunshine is).

The weather has been really really hot and is picking up early for summer- see table .. err… below

	Average Temp	Average Wind	Average Daily Sun
October	16.9 (Max 30.9/Min 6.4)	13.9km/h; prev. SE	1.8hrs; max of 1234 Watts/M2
November	18.9 (Max 30.8/Min 11.7)	17.6km/h; prev ESE	3.27hrs; max of 1376 Watts/M2
December to 14th	23.7 (Max 34.1/Min13.8)	17.5km/h; prev ESE	4.58hrs; max of 1342Watts/M2

The September average temperature was 12.4 deg C by the way.

It’s Sunday and I still can’t get the dam irrigation to work – so it will have to be municipality water again on Monday night unless the long suffering Johan Barnard of Overberg Agri can sort me out.

Half the vines have now got their grow tubes in place and we await the return of Jake’s chaps tomorrow to finish the pruning and fit the rest of the tubes though I still have to find some more grow tube materials (excess Tetrapak – this time wine boxes)

The growth of this European weed still amazes me though you can see that some of the indigenous weeds are already competing.

Fingers crossed that we get no more leaks and that the pump will work soon.

Is there anybody out there who knows anything about the management of terrapins or conditioning of brackish waters? Please contact me - brian@thedawes.net

Novel use of materials and resources

2008-12-11T11:28:00.002+02:00

Yet another eye-catching title I hear you say. What have they done now?
Jake and Sam have found a use for excess tetrapak stock card and so have we now. Tetrapak what? Let me explain.The young vines need some protection and help to get to the cordon wire. J & S found that the material that milk cartons are made from - tetrapak - basically waxed card is ideal. The excess bit seems to be 'end of line' printed stuff for example branded Clover Milk or Soya Milk. The waxed card is rolled out and cut to 1 metre lengths and then stapled into a tube and then popped over the 2 shoots of each vine. They look very cute in their Clover Milk livery now. Not as pretty as rows of green vines but they'll only be on for a couple of months. Photogenic? Maybe not - but I'll post some pics later.
The other bit of innovation is the use of cattle ear tags to label the rows. There has to be a pun in there but for the moment I am at a loss to think of one.

No longer play chicken

2008-12-08T09:36:00.008+02:00

8 Dec 2008

Another week of progress with the usual setbacks and leaps forward. We were away most of the week (in Die Hell) more of that in the other blog. The vines are now a week older and the anchors and cordon wires are complete. We have some losses - about 5%. BUT we have spares and Zakrey will move them in soon.

The vines have had another 35 hours of sunshine and 5mm of irrigation BUT it is very very hot - it hit 34 C yesterday so we may have to do some therapeutic cooling.

For those of you keeping graphs the totals are 248 mm of water and 130.7 hours of good sunshine. We still have no dam water (from the dam that is). Maybe Wednesday?

Zakrey (our Rasta farm manager) is watering the vines that we think may need some help.

Half of the vines have lost their chicken status and have been pruned to 2 shoots heading for the cordon wire.

Zakrey is showing off the 2 shoots in this photo - am not sure which vine it is Row 1 in Block D vine 22 I think.

The 'rock mulch' is very evident in the last photo.

What a Lot of Chickens

2008-11-29T07:15:00.003+02:00

It's Saturday 29th of November 2008: 7.15am.

We've had a strange old week. The anchors and cordon wires have progressed well and we are happy. The dam water stays determinely in the dam. All attempts to get the pump and the very very expensive filtration system working are unsuccesful. We do have municipal water however but have been plaqued again by a succession of leaks and pipe joint failures. Zakrey, our Rastafarian vineyard manager is becoming something of an expert pipefitter, I am tempted to award him a certificate of competence.

The vines look good though. The growth is phenomenal in just 25 days. All have budded and we already have at least 2800 looking like chickens. The eccentric Jake Easton, from Lismore, is very fond of the vine chicken. I'm not sure if this is the correct technical term but Jake insists and I dont arque. Yeah, I know everybody thinks I'm eccentric BUT Jake beats me in the eccentricity stakes hands down. Anybody who signs his emails 'Winemaker and Poet' .... well???? None of our other friends are eccentric. are they? Nah! ... ummm .... possibly Nigel and Alan D and well all of the Alans, Trevor can be strange..... Collo is fairly normal -apart from that not liking anybody trait and that poetry and painting thing he does....... all our children are normal though ... YEAH that's ok then.

This is what rows of chickens look like. These are a couple of the rows in Block D, the first block to be planted on 3 Nov so techically(?) 26 days old.
They've had 208mm of rain since planting plus 25mm of irrigation water and 85 hours of sun. You can see some of the smaller rocks that we have had to outwit and also the latest excavation required to repair the most recent leak. I will tidy it up soon.

At 6 this morning (hence the grey sky) this is what vine VCR12V1 looked like. I've labelled the snap (for the technically interested person). He/she looks well though. There's a close up below of VCR12V4. taken with flash, to show off the leaf growth to best advantage..... thinks... hope he/she isn't affected by the flash... will that affect our organic status?

The trellis system is stainless steel, supplied by the quite normal (compared to Jake!) Jamii Hamlin of ecostake (I know. Anybody who spells their name with 2 i's can't be normal). Collo spotted the product in a farming magazine on one of his dental appointments back in 2007. Iin Feb this year I met up with Jamii and much to his surprize (I wouldn't let him finish his sales pitch!)

I bought it on the spot and we installed it ourselves - I mean I did a row with Zakrey and he did the rest assisted by whoever we could rely on to turn up. It's a much more humane way of trellising. The anchoring and the fitting of the cordon wire for 3000 metres has only taken a week for 2-3 men. I imagine the 6 strand plastic canopy support system should only take a couple of days. Forget all that banging in of wooden posts and a load of guys with those big pliers and staples.

The vines don't really care one way or the other but I think its better for them.

The only difficult bit is the tying off of the cordon wire BUT Jamii's patented fixing system made it easy for Ralph (Jake's foreman) to show off his knotting.

More knots next week - now back to the plumbing.

First Buds

2008-11-21T15:29:00.000+02:00

I'm Block A Row 10 Vine 8.

Planted on 5 Nov 2008- so am now 16 days old.
I'm a Viognier vine - clone VR1A (apparently part of original Viognier brought in to SA) on R110 rootstock. There are only 400 of me in this vineyard.
I've had 205mm of water already and 55 hours of sunshine.
I have quite a few buds but no leaves yet.

I'm Block B Row 4 Vine 4.

Planted on 5 Nov 2008- so am now 16 days old.
I'm a Viognier vine - clone VR642C on R110 rootstock. There are 2600 of me in this vineyard.
I have also had 205mm of water and 55 hours of sunshine.
I have some leaves. The black pipe is my drip feeder

I'm Block C Row 8 Vine 12.

Planted on 4 Nov 2008- so am now 18 days old. I'm a Viognier vine - clone VR642C on R110 rootstock. There are 2600 of me in this vineyard.I have also had 205mm of water and 55 hours of sunshine.I have lots of leaves. The black pipe is also my drip feeder

I'm Block D Row 4 Vine 20.

Planted on 3 Nov 2008- so am now 19 days old. I'm a Viognier vine - clone VR642C on R110 rootstock. There are 2600 of me in this vineyard.I have also had 205mm of water and 55 hours of sunshine.I have lots of leaves and am already very strong as you can see. The black pipe is also my drip feeder. As you can see I have rather rocky mulch (like all of the vines in this yard). They will keep me warm and also keep the weeds at bay.

Vine Watch

2008-11-20T23:55:00.001+02:00

The Vineyard is divided into 2 fields each of 1 hectare. Each field holds approx 3000 vines. The field to the right (as you look from the house) is Viognier.(V) and the field to the left will be Temperanilla (T)
The rows of vines are split into 4 blocks each of 750 vines. The blocks are labelled A, B, C, D and the rows 1 to whatever in each block and the vines 1 to whatever in each row.
SO - Field V; Block A; Row 2; Vine 10 equates to the code VAR2V10; i.e. the 10th vine in the 2nd row of block A of the Viognier field.

In this blog there will be pictures and updates on the vine of the month.

We'll publish a map of all the vines and if you have a favourite - such as VAR2V10, please send an email to VAR2V10@thedawes.net and we will oblige with a picture and update on health and progress.

Happy vine watch