Issue link: http://winesandvines.uberflip.com/i/279499
W i n e s & V i n e s A P R i L 2 0 1 4 33 winter precipitation is adequate except in drought years. Irrigation strategies: starting the year from bud break to bloom Bottom line: In a dry year, you want to have smaller vines (smaller canopy) with a smaller crop compared to years when water supply is ample. You are going to want to use your water at strategic points in the growing season to bring in the crop in good condition and quality, even if the crop is smaller than usual. Since frost is often a problem in dry years, and water may be limited for frost protec- tion, some growers are long pruning as a strategy to delay bud break. In this case, shoots are left long on the spurs and then pruned as the terminal buds start to leaf out. This suppresses the basal buds and delays them from opening by seven to 10 days. This extra time may be enough to get through early frost episodes. If you make it through frost season without damage, you should consider reducing your vines to one or two shoots per spur, no more than two clusters per shoot. This can be done in a suckering pass early in the growing season, which will help you to reduce water needs for the vines as the season progresses. Obvi- ously, thinning to one shoot per spur would be limited to extreme cases when there simply isn't much water. In this case, you are trying to preserve the permanent structure of the vine while really reducing irrigation. If cane pruning, leave propor- tionately fewer buds. At bud break, you will want to have some moisture in the ground to allow vines to expand the canopy. Heavy irrigation at this point isn't advised: If the water supply is limited, you don't want to grow a large canopy, which would only increase water use throughout the season. Moderate irri- gation would be useful if the soil is fairly dry (less than 4 inches of useable water in the soil profile). Australians have found that it is difficult to fully wet a soil profile with drip emitters. Heavy irrigation is more likely to saturate soil beneath the emitters and go right past the root system. Several lighter irrigations before bud break are a better approach, followed by several more before bloom. This is also not the year to grow large cover crops. Any vegetation on the vineyard floor is going to use water. Mow or disk early to conserve moisture. Mowing short may be preferred in hot places, as it reduces g R A P E g R O W I N g Although rain has brought the cover crop back to life, these vines are defoliating and fruit will only ripen by dehydration. Irrigating later into the growing season would have ripened the fruit sooner. SELL TO MORE GROWERS The Wines & Vines Grower Online Marketing System (GOMS) enables users to create and save highly customized grower searches, and export results into advanced report types, data exports and mailing labels. SELECT RECORDS BASED ON: region varietals acreage grape sales new vineyard (866) 453-9701 • winesandvines.com/OMS