We had a very unusual winter this year. Snow drifted as high as 16 feet in the vineyard/orchard (heavy snows and winds were blowing 50 mph for days!!). As a result, the "cute" little bunnies (we have a lot of them) sat on top of the snow and ate the tender shoots off the top of the peach trees then as the snow melted they continued to eat but changed over to the vines. Yes, they sat on top of 6 feet of snow and ate the tender shoots (and as the snow continued to melt) all the way down to the cordons and in some cases chewed away at the younger cordons. So,.... I have a spotty northern vineyard this year with some vines that will produce very few clusters. I will use new base shoots to replace trunks and cordons as needed for next year's crop. Those that did not get eaten are doing extremely well.
We had a very early warming this spring and the vines popped their buds into leaves early. But, luckily we did not have a severe late frost to kill them off. It did get down to 29*F one night but that was still a degree over the critical temp for major damage. I found almost no damage.
As of today (June 12th) some shoots are already 2 feet over the top wires (top wires are 6.5 feet). The cluster pollination went well and I will need to do a LOT of cluster thinning (it really hurts to cut off all those beautiful excess clusters and throw them away!!). If we don't get damaged by hail or tornadoes this year, the crop should still be about the same or greater than last year.
The southern vineyard is going well. I continue to add new vines but lost some when I got a bit careless with a Roundup spray under the vines to kill the weeds. I will let some of the more established vines have a small crop this year.
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