New pictures and news from the vineyard

This weekend was blessed with plenty of rain. This was important for two reasons: one, the young vines need their 2 inches a week and two, on Sunday morning, May 11, I applied beneficial parasitic worms to an acre of grass around the vineyard and house.

The parasitic worms, called nematodes (they have a fancy latin name as well, but I'll stick with nematodes), are used to control beetle populations. Beetles are a huge problem for grape vines because they love to eat the leaves and because they usually have few natural predators; especially in newly developed land that was once forest. Our vineyard is located on a site that was developed only three years ago.

A quick digression about beetle habits: Adult beetles deposit their eggs into the ground and those eggs develop into beetle larvae that stay in the ground eating the roots of grass until they emerge as beetles later the next year. For that reason, beetles flock to healthy lawns that will provide sufficient nutrition to their larvae and thus not to spots located in the middle of the woods. Newly developed sites provide the best of both worlds for a beetle: new, healthy grass and no predators because they had no incentive to be present.

Nematodes are a biological solution to controlling beetle grub populations. Biological because they impact the environment as little as possible. Pesticides can control beetle populations, but they invariably affect the environment in undesirable ways. Many times chemicals kill beneficial insects and this can cause other problems as other pests may start to flourish. The only long term solution is to create a predator-prey balance that is sustainable.

Nematodes are delivered as a powder in a small package. The powder is mixed into water and applied. I used a two gallon pump-action sprayer. I needed approximately 10 gallons of water to apply the nematodes over a one acre plot. The nematodes need to be applied very early morning or late in the evening to eliminate heat and hopefully accompanied by rainfall. The nematodes use the rain to travel into the soil and to seek out beetle grubs.

Enough about parasites! Here are some pictures of my most recent time there on May 11, 2008.

Grass is starting to grow in and around the vines.

A great shot of how tall some of the vines are getting. This one is almost out of the grow tube.

And now for the bad news: I took off one grow tube on Saturday to discover one fat caterpillar and no leaves. Hopefully this little guy will rebound.

Dusty doing what she does best.