Rain Soaking Vineyards

Lately, the weather has really been terrible and could impact the growing season. Last year, I wrote about a slight El Niño effect. This year, it's showing up late.

Casey Hartlip, the Mendocino grapegrower at Eaglepoint Ranch, posted on the West Coast Wine Network, "...We are soaked! We've had over 5 inches in less than a week. If it were the middle of winter and vines were dormant, no big deal... I checked the Ukiah area 100 year rainfall records and we average about 3 inches in April. We've now had almost 10 inches..."

He explains the effect:"The vines have stopped growing with the cold and wet. The root zone is completely under water which means on oxygen while the vines are trying to grow. Also with such wet roots, the soil will warm much more slowly and get moving as well. I'm still not saying it will be a late harvest but I'd bet the farm on a serious chance of it.
Then there's the issue of fungus...and powdery mildew and maybe downy mildew on a year like this. There are early reports [of] blackend shoots around our area. [With the wet soils], you can't drive a spray rig down a row for at least a week..."

I plan on calling my grapegrowers to see how the rain is affecting them.