This week, Jeff Franklin from AAFC Kentville is sharing with us weather information with quite positive values of growing degree values. Veraison started since the middle of August in the earliest hybrids and currently it’s possible to see many vineyards with grapes changing colors and ripening. With the grapes already ripening it’s important to remind to protect the fruit zone to diminish the damage by nature.
Last Thursday September 1 evening, the Best Practices session 4 was held, and it’s currently available on YouTube channel of Perennia and the direct link in this publication. Moreover, in this last event the sonic devices in the vineyard were discussed, and you can find in this publication all the information related to the Sonic Device Policy.
Veraison is moving forward throughout the province, with the earliest hybrids starting a couple of weeks ago and now moving to the earliest Vitis vinifera varieties. With the beginning of veraison, grapes will start to change color, soften, accumulate sugar, decrease acids and other activities are moving along. Tissue sampling for nutritional purposes is one of them, start the protection of the vineyard with nets, kites and fences, and preparing to grape sampling to monitor the fruit ripening.
Already many grapes started veraison and others are going towards this stage, it’s a good time to collect tissue samples for nutritional purposes and start preparing netting to protect the crop. Moreover, it’s time for the next Best practices session!
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At the beginning of last week, the earliest hybrid grapes started to change their consistency and color, berries are becoming softer and reddish and yellowish tonalities are everywhere, in other words veraison is here! On the other hand, as commonly happens, Vitis vinifera varieties are slightly behind and the first changes might start at the end of this week or beginning of the next one depending on the local conditions. Moreover, this is the proper time to take tissue samples for nutritional analysis and to see if it’s necessary to supply in case of lacking or missing some nutrients. Even though this will sound repetitive for our growers and the loyal Nova Scotia Grape Blog readers, it’s important to keep an eye in the fungal diseases, especially Downy Mildew, and not to forget the applications against Botrytis.
Jeff Franklin, from AAFC Kentville, is sharing with us this week weather information with increasing growing degree values. Precipitations have helped to refill the soil profile, grapevines are showing a positive development, grapes are still growing and, in some cases showing the first signs of veraison. In specific cases it’s possible to observe vines with sun burn from previous weeks, which is minimum and nothing to compromise this year’s production.
Jeff Franklin is sharing this week the main observations of the season in terms of temperature until August 31. Always good to remember, this information is coming from Kentville Research Development Centre (KRDC), therefore, some differences between locations are possible to be found.
The season has moving quite fast, with a good amount of precipitation and heat units. Currently, a big percentage of grapevines has achieved veraison, depending locations through the province, which means is time to prepare the vineyard for harvest. Thus, it’s time for the Best Practices session 5.
In the last couple of weeks, the grape clusters have been changing slowly from dark green color to more yellowish or reddish, to be turning their final color. This process is known as veraison, the grapes start the synthesis of color, plus the accumulation of sugar and degradation of acids. Also, once the grapes reach veraison, it’s a good time for tissue sampling for nutritional purposes.
The 2020 growing season has been progressing with warm temperatures, which has impacted the plant development and accelerated their phenological stages. Even though the beginning of the season was cold, and the bud burst was delayed a couple of days, the increase in temperature has helped catch the grapes up to the key stages, such as veraison. Since the week of August 10, some of the early varieties have slowly started to change berry colour, for example, Lucie Kuhlmann and Marquette, depending on the location of the vineyard. The Growing Degree Days (GDD) based on 10 ºC measured till August 18 at the Kentville Research station were registered as 902.1, which are above average of the last 5 and 10 years with 824.4 and 839.7 respectively. Compared to 2019, on the same date, the GDD were 758.3, which makes a difference of 143.8 GGD between 2019 and 2020.