A vineyard is not a Christmas gift. It is a 30-year-long commitment
Get yourself a puppy if you want something easy
“Hello AV. I’m not planning on harvesting this year. Can I just walk away from my vineyard for a year? What is the process for putting my vineyard in mothballs.”
It’s not news that grape prices are in the toilet right now. Surplus wine, declining consumption, and too many acres planted are just some of the culprits. Finger pointing can be exhausting though. After everything that happened last year, my index finger is worn the hell out. Unfortunately, this is just how the market goes. Every time we see a downturn, the biggest question we hear from growers is, “what is the least I can do this year and get away with it?” The quick answer is that you can’t just walk away from your vineyard, but there are some corners you can cut. So, as I put this little piggy on ice, I’ll use my remaining digits to give you an idea of where you can scrimp if you don’t plan on harvesting this year but still want the vineyard to be manageable in the future.
Pruning
You have to prune. Sorry. If you’re mechanically pruning, it’s easy to do a quick pass. If you’re hand-pruning though, there’s no way to mechanically prune for a year or two and go back once you want to start producing again. You’ll have to make big cuts to return to your old spur positions on a cordon. Cane pruning is particularly delicate as constructing a good head at the right height and with the right renewal positions takes time. If you mechanically prune or minimally prune, you’ll lose these positions and any canes you’re left with will most likely not have the thickness or length that you want in a good cane.
Suckering
Pruning and suckering go hand in hand. Some vineyards sucker mechanically, but again that is not a practice that integrates well with hand pruning. The shoots you leave will be your pruning wood next year. If you plan to prune methodically you have to sucker methodically, at least on the cordon or head. Mechanically sucker the trunk all you want, even if you aren’t taking a year off. Really. Go to town.
Shoot positioning and leafing
Here’s where you can start getting lazy. A quick pass is fine. There’s no need to meticulously manicure your fruiting zone if you don’t care about the crop this year. Don’t let it all hang out though. If you let your shoots flop all over the place, you will loose good future canes to your tractor. This will make pruning harder for yourself down the road.
Leaf removal isn’t necessary if you have no intention of harvesting. Leave the leaves alone!
Spraying for disease control
You might not care if your grapes rot off the vine this year, but you don’t want fungal diseases to set up shop for the long term in your vineyard. For this reason, you need to treat for mildew and botrytis. This will keep the inoculum at bay. You can probably cut the number of sprays down a bit, but don’t eliminate them.
If you have mealybugs, or any other insect that vectors disease, you need to stay on top of those as well. Viruses aren’t a year-to-year problem. You don’t want to have to tear out your vines once you get things up and running again.
Weeds
Keeping on top of weeds is also important. It will be harder to take the reigns back once you’ve let them run wild for a year or two. However, maintaining a spotless vine row isn’t necessary either. I’d say, keep weeds in check if only to keep the microclimate relatively dry. You can let your vineyard get a little fuzzy.
Nutrition and irrigation
For mature vineyards in the North Coast, you can probably get away with dry farming. Yield will suffer but what do you care? For more arid regions, you still want to water but just to keep the vines from crashing. You’re just trying to give yourself enough wood for pruning.
Baby vineyards still need water. They’re babies.
As far as nutrition goes, unless you’re farming in kitty litter, you can probably take the year off.
Hedging
No need to do that.
Fruit drop
Nope.
Harvest
Let it rot. There’s no harm in leaving fruit on the vine.
Conclusion
There you go. You can’t completely walk away from your vineyard but you can cut a few corners to save yourself a little time and money. I wish you could do less, but hey, that’s viticulture. Now go prune.
