How low is low enough?

First of all, let me say how lucky I feel for my family and home to have made it through the Christchurch earthquake with so little effect - my best wishes go to those that were not so fortunate!

However, despite the 7.1 magnitude earthquake, the vines continue developing! And about 10 hours after it hit, we were out in the vineyard, finishing up the pruning! This because we're on a pretty warm site for Canterbury, and the buds were showing signs of pushing, making it more difficult to prune. At this stage, the buds start getting more susceptible to being rubbed off, so pulling brush can be a very time-consuming affair if they get too far along!

So once that was finished, I could put on a lime-sulfur spray, which should help control any carryover powdery mildew that could have been left as dormant hyphae on canes left for the coming season.

Powdery mildew infections on dormant canes - the dark blotches are areas where the fungal hyphae have gotten into the shoot tissue during the season

Then came the job of getting ready for spring frosts! This takes the form of mowing the cover crop as closely as possible, so that as much solar energy as possible can be absorbed during the day, and the also released at night. A higher growing cover crop can insulate the soil from gathering the sun's energy during the day, and also keep it from radiating that heat at night, causing an increased frost risk.

So as the grass was relatively high, I had to do a first pass, and then another cut with the mower.

Closeup of the first (upper third) and second pass (lower two-thirds) of the mower. You can see that I've cut the grass shorter than it's been in a while as it's more yellow than the grass in the background.

A longer view of the row (sorry for the "Batman" angle!). First pass on the right, and second on the left.

So we're still a ways away from budbreak (meaning green tissue visible on the buds), and therefore the most sensitive time for the shoots to freezing temperature, but even now they are starting to be more susceptible to frosts. I will be keeping the grass as short as possible over the next few months!!

GM vines out in the open? UPDATE

Back in May I noted a story that said that French researchers were trialling genetically modified vines outside.

Recently it was reported that the trial site had been vandalised. It turns out that they were testing some vines made to be more resistant to Grapevine Fanleaf virus (pdf information sheet from Western Australia here), which is a debilitating and non-curable disease found in many wine producing areas of the world.

The planting was destroyed, so it is a big setback for the evaluation of genetically modified vines.

With the challenges facing the human race, in terms of being able meet the demands for dramatic reductions in the use of pesticides while at the same time increasing the productivity of plants and their quality as well, there needs to be a considerable amount of  well informed and robust debate about the role that GMOs may have in our futures.

As far as I can tell, at the moment any debate going on is neither well informed, nor robust: something I hope changes, and soon!

Aussies wine woes

New Zealand is going through a rough patch, but Australia is too, and has been so for far longer.

Their overproduction problem has been a continuing one, and as mentioned on my Twitter account (@sabrosiavit -blatant plug! :-) there have been suggestions that tens of thousands of hectares of vines need to be ripped out to address the underlying issue - too many grapes in the ground!! A recent article says that some bulk grape growers are making just 27 cents on a bottle!!

But not only do they have the oversupply problem, they have issues with water supply, water salinity, and now, locusts??

Let's hope that the next step of the Plagues of Egypt doesn't take form for the wine industry there: Plague of Darkness!! :-)

How wet is too wet?

As the rain pours out of the sky today (30mm so far), with the ground already being so wet, pools of water are appearing everywhere, most alarmingly, in the back and front yards!!

As our own vineyard is on a slope, we don't need to worry about waterlogged soil, and many other vineyards in New Zealand are on free-draining gravelly soils, again, where water-logging isn't usually a concern.

However, in some cases, water can accumulate in the soil profile to above field capacity to total saturation, where no air spaces are left. If the water is free-standing for a while, it's not much of a problem for grapevines, but if it goes on too long, the roots will suffocate!

This is most likely to happen in the winter months, although in the spring if the snow in the mountains melts too quickly, you may get rivers overflowing their banks. In New Zealand, we can get flash floods in some places with heavy rainfall, and also flooding as a result of a lot of rainfall, saturated soils, particularly those that don't drain well (e.g. high clay content).

The difference between a decent-draining soil and a horrible-draining soil. These are two posts that I set in the ground yesterday - they're concreted in, but on the left the water has drained away, but for the post on the right the water is just sitting there. For the hole on the right, from about 20cm and down what I was digging out was almost pure clay! About 7m separates the posts.

In California and Oregon, back when I was studying on the West Coast of the US, there were several times of flooding, which meant some vineyards (or treefruit crops) were in standing water for weeks, or even months at a time.

So how long can roots survive under water? They need oxygen for the process of respiration, but in the winter, when the roots and above-ground parts of the vine are in dormancy, there isn't much activity in the tissues, so the use of oxygen is very slow. There can be oxygen in the water as well (this is how fish "breath" under water), and the roots may be able to take advantage of this, but the oxygen in the water that's near the roots, once the oxygen is used, the only way to replenish it is to have new water that has been exposed to air. Down in the soil profile, this doesn't happen so often!

So there are a number of factors that can contribute to the amount of time that roots can tolerate flooded conditions, but I'm of the mind that a few weeks shouldn't harm the roots or vines. In most cases, the water won't stick around that long.

During that all-important site selection process, these sorts of things should be investigated!

Meanwhile, I'll be hoping that the rain stops soon!!

Recycling vineyard wastes

Fantastic news at this link:
Agrecovery introduces net recycling programme

There is now a way for growers to safely dispose of their bird netting as well pesticide containers and the like.

Side netting like this is quite common in a lot of growing areas. It's most effective in those places where the bird pressure isn't high.

This is a great addition to the recovery and recycling of irrigation tubing, which is also becoming more widepread.

Bird netting has a finite life, as even though the plastic is treated against the effects of UV radiation, it eventually will become more brittle and start to break. A lifespan of eight to ten years is possible, but often nets may not last this long if it's roughly handled. For example, if the vines grow up through the netting

It's very difficult to extract the shoots from the netting after harvest. This leads to tearing and a lot more stress on the net when it's taken up, so it may not last as long.

Having a viable option to recycle the nets is fantastic, and  I hope that it becomes available in all grape growing areas!

International Cool Climate Symposium for Viticulture and Oenology

It's been an eventful month. I was visiting the USA for three out of the last four weeks. One of the reasons I went was to attend the Seventh International Cool Climate Symposium for Viticulture and Oenology, which was held in Seattle Washington. This was followed by the American Society for Enology and Viticulture's National Conference, also at the Washington State Convention Center.

It was a great one-two punch, with Lincoln University having a great presence through the four days, with a total of 10 abstracts, a mixture of talks and posters, representing research from LU's Centre for Viticulture and Oenology.

I made the most of the trip, presenting three posters and three talks, which reported on some of my masters students' research (on the use of crushed glass and mussel shells as reflective mulches (Olivia Ross, with a poster and a talk on those results) and also on soil type effects on Sauvignon blanc vine performance and fruit composition (a poster showing Melissa Sutherland work)) as well as some other projects I've done with students and colleagues (screening UV radiation from early season vine growth (a poster, with the project done with visiting French intern Cindy Bizet), rootstock effects on Chardonnay vine growth and fruit composition (a poster, with the research being that of myself, technician Gilbert Wells and students who have taken the HORT328 class at Lincoln Uni) and leaf area to crop load ratio effects on Pinot noir yield components and fruit composition (a talk, with most of the vineyard work done by student Michelle Pan, with Gilbert Wells helping out in the field work and with data analyses)).

Feedback was very good, and we also saw some great presentations, as well as having some stimulating conversations about all things viticultural (and beyond!). A most pleasurable way to spend a week, even though we were cooped up inside the Convention Centre instead of enjoying Seattle, the city!

I should mention that we stayed at the Inn at Virginia Mason (www.innatvirginiamason.com), which is a hotel attached to the Virginia Mason hospital. It's not the most modern of places, but it has real charm, and we did like its restaurant, The Rhododendron. It's also very convenient to the Convention Center, and the fabulous M Street Market (www.mstreetgrocery.com) is also only a couple of blocks away!

When I'm outside NZ, I usually look to see what NZ wines are available, so I couldn't resist snapping a picture of the M Street Market's selection:

Six wines, five of which were Sauvignon blancs and one Pinot noir. That's about the right ratio, I reckon!!

Prices ranged from USD10 for the Monkey Bay Savvie to USD17 for the Kim Crawford Savvie. The latter was even more expensive than the lone Pinot noir - Oyster Bay's, which was selling for USD16.

Also of note, all the Savvies save the Brancott Estate were 2009 vintage, with the Pernod Ricard wine being a 2008 year one. The Pinot noir was a 2008 as well.

These are reasonably expensive in comparison to a lot of California and European wines, but I'm pretty sure that what's inside the bottles would be worth it!!

Oh, and watch out for the 2010 vintage Savvies -they're set to be some really good drops!

Looking at the big picture

 The wine industry in New Zealand has been in a bit of strife recently. Exports and sales of wines have been going swimmingly, but the people planting vineyards were a bit too enthusiastic, resulting in the supply:demand ratio, which has been very low for a long time, swinging above the 1:1 mark, beginning with the 2008 vintage.

The result? Prices for New Zealand's darling 1000-pound gorilla, Sauvignon blanc, have dropped this past vintage to less than half of what they were two years ago.

Bad news - yes! But it's not like it wasn't foreseen. New Zealand Winegrowers were telling the industry before the 2008 vintage that they should be cautious about planting more vineyards, as though exports were increasing (albeit taking a hit from the global economic crisis), they were about to be outstripped by new vineyards coming into production. Their predictions came true, only more so, because the vintage was bigger than pretty much anyone had guessed.

So NZ Winegrowers, on their yearly post-vintage summary seminar series around the country, spelled it out: There's too much wine in the tank, we don't need another big vintage (this would be made worse by the fact that another couple of thousand hectares of grapes planted in years prior were going to start bearing in the 2009 vintage). We need to work at the markets to sell the 2008 vintage, while still retaining the country's very high-value position in the market.

Others in industry saw the writing on the wall, and with NZ Winegrowers, suggested that people cut down their crops for 2009 in the most painless way possible: at pruning. Instead of leaving four canes on their Savvie vines, leave three, or better yet, two! This means that potential crops are lower, so there wouldn't be the need to spend money on dropping crop later.

Needless to say, not everyone took the advice, and though the industry managed, partly through less-than-ideal conditions at fruit set, to bring in a vintage that was just the same amount as in 2008, there was a high cost to growers, who 1) had paid people to lay down four, instead of two, canes at pruning, then 2) had to pay people to take off crop before harvest to meet the more-stringent terms of the contracts that they had signed with the wineries.

The contracts changed as a result of 2008, and for good reason. Previously, contracts had been arranged so that the winery would take all the fruit off of a vineyard - not so unusual when the demand outstrips supply. In 2008, there ended up being a lot more grapes in the vineyard than the wineries had counted on, meaning that they lacked to capacity to process it all quickly enough, and also lacked the tank space to keep it in afterward. However, many wineries took in all the fruit. However, after one vintage of that, and realising that the market wasn't going to soak up all that wine easily, they re-wrote the contracts to say that they would buy only up to a certain tonnage of grapes off the vineyard - anything beyond that, and they didn't _have_ to buy it.

This was much better for the winery, as they then could plan to take in as much as they had the capacity to process, store and sell. And, I have to say, it was much more realistic for the growers, as the market for their grapes was no longer a bottomless pit. No one should say that they weren't aware of what was going on! For years Sauvignon blanc was getting far more than a realistic price for what it was - there was definitely an imbalance there that was eventually going to be corrected.

However, these new conditions do make things harder for the grape growers. Now, instead of a gentleman's agreement as to how much was going to come off the block, there was a exact number that they needed to hit. This is far trickier for grapes that you might think (yield prediction is another whole series of blog posts!!).

So in 2009, many more growers realised that the old days are gone, and a new way of looking at grape production was a reality. And though the industry really did pull together and bring down the size of the 2009 harvest, there was still a lot of work to be done. Exports were still growing, but the size of the 2008 harvest meant that there was still wine from that vintage to be sold, and also a lot of 2009. The good news was that the '09 wines were really good - better than the '08s. The bad news was it was getting harder to sell the '08s when the better '09s were coming.


So the New Zealand wine industry entered into a market that it really wasn't all that familiar with - bulk wine sales. Large volumes of wine began to trade hands at very inexpensive prices. It was starting to allow the industry to catch up in terms of supply and demand, but it was also eroding at the hard-won high-value image that New Zealand wines had developed over the past couple of decades.

So that brings us to vintage 2010. Another critical year for the industry. Another 1500 hectares of grapes were coming into production over the 2009 vintage, yet there was still a lot of wine in tank. To continue helping the supply:demand mix, the industry, in this case this meant the growers, needed to tighten their belts and produce a crop even lower than in 2009!

NZ Winegrowers were at the forefront of this push, delivering the message in a number of venues that in order for the Marlborough Sauvignon blanc to retain its highly sought after position in the international marketplace, yields must be kept down.

And do you know what? It looks like the industry may have done it. The final numbers aren't in yet, but it looks like the vintage will be a significant amount lower than in 2009.

As someone connected to the NZ wine industry, that makes me feel very proud! To have an industry filled with the range of large to smaller scale growers actually pull together, despite the economic hardship, and make a dent in the national production of winegrapes is phenomenal.

And how was this done? It was through the efforts and sacrifices of many, yes, but at the start of it all was NZ Winegrowers. They were the ones who were taking the "big picture" view of national production and how it was fitting into the global markets. They are the ones that went out and promoted the message that the industry, as a whole, needed to hunker down and get serious, for the benefit of the industry as a whole. They are the ones who looked at export and production projections and said we need to hit this particular target in 2010.

The unified nature of NZ Winegrowers is, I am of the firm opinion, a major reason why the NZ wine industry has been so successful. Unlike in other countries, we have had a single body representing the national industry for many years - this has provided a unified message to the rest of the world about New Zealand wine. Its generic marketing has allowed for a Brand New Zealand to be cultivated, which benefits behemoth Pernod Ricard and the little guys, such as the wineries in the Family of Twelve.

So this is why I get a bit miffed when I see headlines like this:

"Winegrowers warned after complaints"

"Winegrowers ticked off by Commerce Commission"

The articles make it sound as though NZ Winegrowers have been coercing growers into dropping crop. From my point of view, which I hope is now very clear, NZ Winegrowers has been make a very convincing case of reasons to limit crop, and people have had ample evidence that NZ Winegrowers knows what it's talking about after the 2009 vintage. The group has been doing what is best for the industry as a whole. They certainly have not been forcing people to drop crop! It is to this industry's credit as a whole that reason has been listened to, despite the hardship, and growers have pulled together to get the industry back on track.

My congratulations, and thanks, go out to all those who have heeded the call, made the hard decisions, and hopefully, will reap the benefits as soon as possible.