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April 2015 WINES&VINES 17 WINE INDUSTRY NEWS across the property," he said in early March. "There have been two very long frost-control nights so far, which are just a big drain on everything: water, fuel, sleep," he said. In some areas of the North- west, growers began starting to see buds break in mid-March. Buds had started breaking by March 11 on Early Muscat vines at Celestina Vineyard in Southern Oregon's Rogue Valley, according to grapegrower John Pratt, while Keith Pilgrim at Terra Blanca Winery on Red Mountain in Washington state was doing ev- erything he could to slow down his vines. "Mother Nature seems to be bent on an early start to the growing season," Pilgrim told Wines & Vines. The winery co-owner had de- layed pruning on vines that are typically earliest to bud in an ef- fort to dissuade them, but with temperatures in the 70°s—unsea- sonable for March, where the long-term average high in March crests 57° F—growers proved no match for nature. Pilgrim said he wished it were sufficiently late in the season that he could count on tempera- tures staying warm enough to guarantee a lack of frost. "We will probably have bud break on some of the early varietals (by March 25), which would make us about three-plus weeks early. If it would just warm up and stay frost-free, that would be great." David Beck of Crawford Beck Vineyard in Amity, Ore., under- stands Pilgrim's anxiety. Growing degree-days in Beck's region started to accumulate three to four weeks ahead of normal— but touches of frost in the vineyard during mid-March forestalled any confidence that winter was over. "Bud break in 2014 was around April 6, so we are not far away," he said. "The danger, of course, is bud loss due to a spring frost, and we are certainly not out of frost season." Beck noted that he'd already seen evidence of some drying in the root zone. "The 1-foot soil moisture probes are starting to show some drying," he said. "Although there is no movement at 3 feet, this is exceptionally early for the 1-foot probe to show movement." Indeed, federal weather watch- ers noted in mid-March that snow water equivalent was just 9% to 15% of normal throughout the Willamette Valley and into South- ern Oregon. "Each day without snow ac- cumulation from here on out drops the probability of any recov- ery closer to being highly un- likely," remarked Greg Jones of Southern Oregon University in his most recent climate update to growers. —Wines & Vines staff Chardonnay buds start to swell at Crawford Beck Vineyard in Amity, Ore. DAVID BECK