It all started in the late winter-early spring. March and April were extremely warm months for this part of the country. In a way, this was good for my alginate frost avoidance research, but not for the vines in general. Buds on my control vines for the alginate experiments began to swell in late March. Luckily, the alginate treated vines from all dilutions held during this period.

The alginate experiments this spring contained three treatments and a control. All were applied on the 19th of March because of the record warm weather. The first treatment was a diluted as it might be if applied with an airless sprayer. Treatment #2 was full strength. And treatment #3 contained 10% more alginate than full strength (to see if this had a more delaying affect). Within a week of the March treatment, the warm weather had made the control vine's buds swell. On 30 March, the temperature dipped to 19 degrees and the control vine's primary buds were toast. All of the treated vines had not swelled and the primary buds were intact, still dormant, and alive. The weather remained cold for another day and then quickly warmed up into the upper 80's and low 90's through the first couple of weeks in April. Then another cold spell hit. If the control vine's buds weren't damaged by the first freeze, they were now. Vines with the light alginate treatment were also affected. But the full strength and the full plus 10% held the buds in check and they went through this spell fine. Once again, the weather warmed up into early May. Then another freeze in late May. This was growing grapes under the most marginal of conditions. The vines with the full strength alginate treatment began budding shortly after this last freeze. Those with the extra 10% alginate didn't begin to bud until into the first part of June. I realized that the extra 10% did its job too well and those vines treated thusly would have a struggle to ripen in time.

The real disaster of 2004 came on Father's Day. Such a present! The vineyard received a hail storm that lasted almost an hour and was driven by 45-50 mile per hour winds. When all was done, the vines were completely stripped and there was 4 inches of hail on the ground. One incidental to this hail storm was that the variety, LaCrosse, came through with very little damage in comparison to the rest of the vines. So, it will be the only variety to bear this year. The Father's Day hail broke the six year drought I have had here at the vineyard. And ever since it has been cool and rainy.

The July and August, 2004 temperatures have daily been 5-30 degrees below normal. Because of the excess moisture during those months, the vines recovered well. In fact, I let the weeds go in the rows just to absorb all the rain water and keep the vines in check. (I might regret that decision next year, but it did help) With no crop to slow growth, some vines went rampant. I began to wonder how well they would harden off.

This year is was hail that I've had to deal with. I have some hail in most years. But generally hail does very little damage. Last year I had what I though was a bad hail storm but I only experienced a slight reduction in the crop and it came much earlier than the one this year so the vines had more time to recover. If the hail comes early in the growing season, you can add a light dose of fertilizer to give the vines a boost in recovery. But when it comes later, fertilizer will hinder hardening off and promote winter kill. When hail damage is severe, the grower has to think about next year (there's always next year with perennials like grapes). In my case this year, I turned to developing a good vine structure for next year. In some cases this meant cutting back what would have been fruiting canes to encourage good shoots close to the trunk. This invigorates the vine and the shoots produced will be the best for fruiting next season. It acts like adding nitrogen without endangering the hardening off process in the fall.

This year's hail storm was followed by two, very wet months. I was worried that my invigoration of the vine growth might go too rampant. So I allowed the weeds to grow in the rows, robbing the vines of some moisture and balancing the vine growth into a more normal pattern that would have occurred if they had a crop load to slow growth in the late summer.

Each year has to be treated individually when growing grapes. You have to judge your cultural practices by what Mother Nature presents to you. Some years you will have to invigorate your vines while others will mean devigorating them. And in years like this one, I even have had to do both depending on the circumstances and the season. Such is life in the "fast lane" of viticulture.

A Few Comments About My Upcoming eBook

I know that I've been promising my grape growing eBook for some months now. I just want you to know that it will be coming out very soon. I've been so busy with my full time job that it has taken me longer than I would have ever thought to complete it. That coupled with all of the new things that I am constantly learning under the marginal growing conditions here in the Rist Canyon of Colorado that need to be included in this book. But I am just finishing up writing the book and doing the editing. So it will be coming out soon. Before Christmas so that it will make a good gift.