Brilliant day

3-y-o Solaris vine

We are experiencing an amazing weather week. No rain, light winds, and, today, brilliant sunshine. It was glorious. I walked up into the vineyard to check on progress as the plum and cherry trees are in full bloom already.  Lo and behold, although the 5-year-old vines had not yet leafed, the first leaves were unfurling on the three-year-old specimens. Interesting.

What a difference a day makes

Well I went out to the vineyard after publishing my post this morning and contrary to my earlier report, every single one of the 4-yo red Rondo vines had leafed while the white Solaris still had only one leaf. It's a wonderful time of year.

Happy days

Sweet greens

Even the young vines have come alive

Sudden greening

Leafing!

The first leaves opening on the Solaris vines

Rondo getting close on the 8th May.

I've been going up into the vineyard and taking pictures of the buds daily for several weeks. When everything was flowering in the orchard, not a vine had yet leafed in the vineyard. Slowly, ever so slowly, I watched as the leaves unfurled in a most sluggish way. Then yesterday, after several days of sunshine, the first leaf appeared - it was the 8th of May and it was on the white grape vine. Seems very late. The ones on the Rondo reds was almost there, but the first leaf was definitely open on the Solaris white.

I walked the field and made note of how everything was doing. The four-year-old vines are robust with strong buds. The newly planted vines are of two natures: one is robust and bursting to leaf, the other is barely surviving. In fact it looks like four of the 50 Alex planted last year are dead.

The chardonnay's don't look great so far either. They have buds, but small ones and some canes are black and look dead. I'll give them a little time to wake up still, but it appears that my experiment has revealed their fate. The cold snap we had and the prolonged period of below normal temps has taken its toll. Climate change does not equate to global warming. Not yet, not here anyway. Maybe something unusual will happen and I'll be saying, "Hmm, that's funny." Those are usually the best words in science, and after all, this is all an experiment, though uncharacteristically unscientific for two ex-biologists.

On the 26th April they were this far along.