Protecting Grapevines from Frost or Freeze Events
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- Опубликовано: 20 май 2020
- A bad spring frost or freeze can really damage your grape vines, causing a partial or total loss of fruit for the season in the vineyard. There are many techniques to attempt to protect the vines in the event of a freeze. Though there is no guarantee that you can save the crop, it is generally worth trying and can be highly successful. The methods we will discuss are wind machines, heat sources, micro sprinklers, and finally methods to delay bud break on the vines.
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Thank you for these videos. I put in a backyard vineyard last year with Marquette, Frontenac, and Marechal Foch. Just getting started with the hobby but I find these videos extremely helpful and informative.
Thank you! From Rhode Island.
Because I am growing my vines in a river valley, late frost is relatively common. Four ways that I solve it. I allow my cordons to grow vertically instead of horizontally. Later I will lower the cordons to a horizontally position. You just have to provide for a long pole to which you can tie up the cordons. Secondly, I have much longer cordons. Some sprouts will be later and be safe from late frost. Thirdly, my vineyard is enclosed with high fencing and fruit trees. Fourth, I allow many vines to grow on trellisses at a height of 3 meters.
Yes been there... this exact thing happened to me in North Carolina on April 9th 2016 (I have the exact date stored in my vineyard log). And I went the sprinkler route. Unfortunately I think it actually made the situation worse, and lost 80% of our crop for the year. One thing to mention, my well ran dry at about 5am, however even if it made it till dawn I think the results would have been similar. I throughly inspected the vines that morning, and not sure I subscribe to the idea that heat is created between the ice and leaf.
That said after that experience, I build a large fire pit next to the vineyard (it was a nice addition anyway). I plan on using that (with some industrial fans at the end of each row) to circulate warmer air. Know its not guaranteed, but not planning on going the water route again.
PS- yes I also leave multiple buds on my spurs now until I reach May 1st to assure I have a backup if some do get burnt by frost.
Thanks for the info. I have read that if you stop the sprinkler before the temp rises back above freezing it can cause a lot of trouble. I would certainly like to learn more about it since it is one of those things that seems like it can be amazing or horrible depending on a few variables. Hopefully will not need to employ the sprinklers very often. I was pretty seriously considering the fire route also. If I was a little more in the country I might consider that. I think you will need some really big fires though and will want to be careful not to burn out the vines closest to the fires.
Excellent video. There have been a lot of late frost issues here in the UK as well this year. We're a recently planted one hectare vineyard in Wales, so we are learning all the time. My understanding so far is as follows. One option (which might help for small backyard vineyards) is spraying with certain (environmentally and operator friendly) products. For example, seaweed concentrate before a frost event can raise sugars within the tissue and also lower the freezing point of water (because they are essentially mineral salts which dry on to the vines in advance and then, in solution when frost settles on to the leaves and buds, help to prevent the water from freezing). After frost, it can help to give the plants a bit of a boost with a biostimulant like seaweed again, or one product is an orange peel concentrate, or with plant tisanes you can make yourself from nettles, comfrey, willow. Bare, compact and ideally damp soil under the vines in the lead up to frost can also raise the amount of thermal energy captured by the soil and radiated back out at night. But if you get down to minus 2.6°C with shoots 6 inches long and more, like we did last week, it doesn't really matter what you do, you are going to get some losses. The more things you can do in advance and during to give added layers of protection, though, the lower the amount of damage for any given temperature and duration. And you won't beat yourself up about what might have been if you've tried everything you can think of. Although there is no one silver bullet, the overhead sprinkler system is apparently the most efficaceous if you can get it set up. You'll need a lot of water, a system which can ensure droplets of water continually rain onto the buds and leaves, and a trellising system which can hold a lot of weight.
Thank you for the awesome information! I will defitely do some research around the seaweed and other sprays. Are you farming the vines biodynamically or just using mostly natural sprays when possible?
@@TheHomeWinemakingChannel Thank you for all the incredibly useful information on your channel. We found it last year when we were heading towards taking our first harvest and researching techniques for assessing ripeness including TA level in the juice. Your method using a pH meter was by far the easiest to understand and use.
We are not biodynamic, but we do try keep things as natural and environmentally friendly as possible. We mostly grow a hybrid variety called Seyval Blanc which is excellent for sparkling wine but also naturally disease resistant, which helps. Also using rechargeable battery powered tools and green electricity for as many tasks as possible.
did you try a tempo ? I curious to see if you can grow grapes with maraîchers techniques
I was wondering how your little vineyard held up with this bizarre spring, I lost about 80% of my young plants in my garden last night. My fruit trees came out ok but I think I lost a crop off my nectarine tree. My couple grape vines are toast. I never got to planting a whole vineyard since the last couple years the Spotted Lantern Fly is really hammering our grape vines here. Keep up the good content!
Did your grape vines come back to life? It seems to be pretty hard to kill a vine once the roots are established but you can wipe out the new growth pretty easy.
@@TheHomeWinemakingChannel The vines themselves came back fine but the fruit is basically gone. Some fruit tree like my Peach and Tangerine trees made it thru fine as well as one of my apple trees.
Thank you for these videos. I just lost probably all of my buds due to multiple frosts. Many if the canes also look dead or very bad. I've got 50 vines on ~ 1/4 acre. Should I purchase new vines or do you think they will come back? Also, what do you think about a hoop house to protect from frost in the future? Thanks!
We use the Netafim Stripnet micro sprays, they work very well in frost areas.
Interesting video. Would you do a video on proper pruning of grape vines. That would be very helpful.
I will definitely do a video on pruning at some point. Possibly next year. I am still dialing in my techniques there so I want to make sure I have all the ins and outs figured out before posting a video.
Do you have any good books you recommended on wine making?
I could of used this a couple weeks ago here in NW MO. I had leaves on some already, it looks like most are going to pull through. Question, what plants do you have at the end of your rows on the back side of your end post?
The ones for me that held up the best were the latest to break buds. Which are not necessarily the most cold tolerant for winter extremes though so there is that to deal with. The cab franc, and merlot are the last two rows which did great. Riesling got a little beat up but seems to have had enough dormant buds to be pretty good still. Blaufrankisch got hammered bad. Noiret got hammered but has super fruitful secondary buds and a lot of them. Traminette is not looking great. Seemed to really struggle with secondary buds so I am concerned I will have insane vegetative growth on those since i may have less canes than I want. I have a few Cabernet Sauvignon vines that did alright but I am concerned they will not ripen fully thanks to the late start. They may have lost a few buds over the winter also. Seemed loem only about half of their buds woke up. There is for sure a lot of hard lessons with a little vineyard! Good to have a community of people to share experiences with.
Hey, love from india I had a doubt can adding sodium metabisulfite affect the color of wine by making it a shade lighter 🤔 I had done one batch of wine long back using Java fruit the color went from a red to rosé I added aprox 1/8 tsp to a batch of 5ltrs and I don't have the gravity readings with me cos I lost the notes😅
Hi! The sulfites can have a temporary bleaching effect, especially on juices where the color is not yet stabilized. After about a day the bleaching effect will go away.
Have you considered Christmas lights? I have covered my vines after running lights and have had great success in temps as low as 21F here in Colorado
New style lights or old screw in bulbs? I have considered it but figured it would not do much with the more modern bulbs. It is tough to cover them with about 300 ft of trellis also. I once tried with some 6 mil plastic I got from Lowes and it was a real mess. We got a wind storm as the cold front came in. The wind would get up under the plastic and try to lift it off like a parachute.