A few, sporadic, warm, clear days over the past two weeks have triggered spurts of flowering. The cloudy weather has led to inflorescence necrosis in blocks that were the first to bloom. The cool weather has delayed and slowed flowering in the other blocks, with significant amounts of cap retention. We don't yet know how this will affect yield, but it's clear that we'll be harvesting in October this year.
Clone 115
There is significant variation in the evenness and amount of vegetative growth in vineyards throughout the northern Willamette Valley this year. Fortunately, our vines have developed relatively evenly and are, vegetatively, ahead of where we would normally be by mid-bloom. Due to the early development, abnormally large amounts, and rapid growth of lateral/secondary shoots this year we were forced to remove these shoots during bloom. A positive side effect of this is that we should see better berry set than had we been able to wait until after bloom, when the laterals normally are ready to be removed. Most primary shoot tips are well above the top catch wires; we will begin clipping the top wires tomorrow, and probably be forced to hedge the shoots in the following week.
115 Clone
We continue to await the forecasted sunny, warm, and dry weather. It seems like every forecast shows it to be only 'a couple of days away'...
