This weeks cold overnight temperatures had Virginia grape growers on edge and worried about losing their crop for the year. With the unusually warm weather in March and early bud break it caused, the results of a freeze event would have been devastating. We’d like to hear from you as to how you came through these cold mornings.
Also, don’t forget to continue scouting for damage throughout the weekend. Often times cold damage can take a few days to fully present when the temperatures were near freezing but not much below. With the warming trend the vines will start pushing again and you may see leaves that look discolored, crinkled, or burned. These are all signs of cold damage.
Here’s hoping we’ve turned the corner for cold events, on to the next challenge!
So far so good here at Pollak Vineyards. Our weather data shows that we were right at 32 degrees for about an hour and fifteen minutes early Thursday morning. I am seeing a fair amount of crinkling of the leaves in our lower elevation vineyards but no widespread shoot kill. We had more damage from the morning of March 27 when we went just below freezing and we did have some shoots killed in our lowest spots. However I’m thinking of it as early shoot thinning!
I am actually kind of concerned now about uneven growth of the shoots. A lot of what was just emerging when the weather turned cold completely stalled where as the plants that were advanced due to the early heat didn’t seem to slow as much through the recent weather pattern.
We appear to have come off unscathed despite frost on the ground and ice on the early morning windscreens. We sprayed foliar nutrients late into Wednesday evening but cannot claim this saved us as our control is in equally good shape.
The vines out at Ivy near Charlottesville are also fine. The reds there, however, have only just begun bud break. They are a long way behind us in Afton just 17 miles away. Don’t know why that is! Colder spot and we pruned there last?
On on to Summer and pray we do not get another cold front just rain for our spring planting. Good luck everyone.