Moved from 'October Grape': River Vineyard mysteries

The river-vineyard has 5 of 6 rows planted. To check my record keeping, I tried to 'balance' the 'new vineyard' spreadsheet, which was started when I cleaned the seeds and has been updated periodically ever since, against what I counted in the river-vineyard and 14 remaining pots.

Here is what I discovered.  The river-vineyard has 3 sets of mystery plants, plants with suspect lineage.  First, there are offspring of Rich's 'mystery vine'.  Rich's mystery vine is one of his favorites.  Seedlings from this vine are among the most vigorous river-vineyard vines. Pedigree?  Oh, well...

Second, there is the pot whose label said 'Missing spoon'. The pot was planted out and covers 14 dripper locations, the largest group we planted.   I use plastic spoons covered with metalic tape to record the cross in each pot.  This pot seems to have lost its spoon, so at some unrecorded moment this spring, I put a 'missing spoon' spoon in that pot.

After carefully checking my spreadsheet, all the river vineyard vines and remaining pots, there were only two spreadsheet entries that were not accounted for:

CA 06-38-1 x Carnelian (on 5/4/13, my records said there were 20 seedlings)

Doaniana Montague x Carnelian (on 5/4/13 there were 5 seedlings)

Since we planted 14+ seedlings, the 'missing spoon' pot was probably 'CA 06-38-1 x Carnelian'.  The Doaniana x Carnelian pot was probably the one attacked by snails, and got removed at some point.  (I only had one pot suffer from snails)

I'll leave the '?' on the label until the seedlings grow out and we can confirm the guess.

Finally, there was one pot with a label that wasn't in my spreadsheet: Z89-9-3 x Cabernet Sauvignon.  The label is pretty clear about what it says, so I'm very sure  it wasn't in my spreadsheet.  What can I say, it is another mystery.  I'm just going to add it to the spreadsheet now, and plant the pot.  Additionally, there was an extra unplanted 'Doaniana Montague x Cab' pot.  Having two Cabernet crosses omitted from the spreadsheet is troubling, but the labels are both explicit (and in my hand writing).

Mea culpa.  My record keeping has flaws.  All I can do is record the issues as I find them.

If you have gotten this far, here is a screen shot of my spreadsheet.  The top 14 entries are "row 6" of the new river-vineyard. The 'planting or greenhouse' numbers are for 'dripper sites'.  Generally, there are two seedlings at each dripper location.

Below that is an inventory of the seedlings still in pots.  For these entries, the 'planting or greenhouse' number is a direct count.

The first 5 river-vineyard rows are shown in my 7/11/13 entry.

Click to enlarge...

Here is an update on this year's seedlings as of 7/8/13.  Of note, the z89-9-3 x Jupiter has been the weakest cross as a group.  I'm having to work to keep 3 seedlings alive, hiding them from the sun.  Rich's Montague x French Mystery vine seems to be the healthiest.

I'm still planting seedlings as they get large enough to handle the sun.  A new row will probably get planted this weekend. 

Click on the list to enlarge it.

We got a lot done this weekend, but still don't have seedlings planted...

Here are the new rows being prepared in the east vineyard

Here is the new water tank.  Actually, we bought it on Craig's list 2 years ago, but had not found a way to hook it up until now.

Doaniana Montague blossom

This bud survived a light frost Friday morning (31.6 degrees, some damage to seedlings I forgot to protect), and a hard freeze on March 26 (11 days ago, 25 degrees).

I think it is a primary bud that was somewhat leafed out on the 26th.  There are 2 other buds that I know survived the freeze, but showing less development as of today.  Like this one, they both have inflorescence.  Most of the leafed out buds were toast, but a few survived.

This is a unique trait in my vineyard.  I've never gotten a blossom from a vine that had leafed out prior to a frost.  Perhaps this is a Texas adaptation since late frosts are so common.  Doaniana is special.

Texas grape tent

We are making a lot of progress on the 'grape tent'.  We have built the end posts and beams for a pergola that will eventually spread over the whole west vineyarWe have built the end posts and beams for a pergola that will eventually spread over the whole west vineyard.  Vines will be allowed to grow up and over the pergola wires, creating a big tent.  This is an southern Italian technique call 'tendone' (tent).

I think this will help protect the soil and mulch from the summer sun.

Pergolas, everyone loves pergolas!

Pruning day, 2013

It took me an hour and twenty minutes to prune the vineyard this evening.  It is amazing what one can do with a battery powered headlight.  The Lomanto, one of the Doaniana Montague crosses and couple of the Cinerea x Mourvedre crosses are starting to display swollen buds, but everything else is still sleeping.  The variation in Cinerea x Mourvedre crosses will be worth paying more attention to as things develop.

It was an interesting evening. There was talk of a comet being visible at sundown, but we didn't see anything.  I got to see the first signs of progress on the pergola.  The pergola is going provide an overhead growing environment for the top 4 rows in the west vineyard.  I'm interested in seeing if this helps my efforts to improve the soil by shading it from the summer sun.

Planting weekend

I took a vacation day Friday.  We worked on the trellis in the morning Friday, and I spent the afternoon buying parts for the expanded water system.  Saturday and Sunday, I was 'heeling' cuttings.  I would have liked to simply plant the cuttings were we expect them to stay, but my rows are not ready (and won't be for at least 3 weeks), so they went into the below heap of sand and clay next to the 'big hole'.

Pretty nondescript.  A lot of effort went into this, though.

Here is my workshop.  It was in the shade when I started, but things changed as the afternoon slipped by.

It is very portable.  A chair/Kneeler. A box to serve as desk and workbench.  On the workbench is a sharpy, two knives and some scratch paper.  Additionally, there are two watering pots and several bags (one of which was a trash bag).  Not shown is a small bottle of rooting hormone.  It is hiding behind the light green water can.  This was taken when I was done, so the ten or show packages of cuttings have been converted into rooting material and heeled (see above).

Left to right on the berm (of course you can't see any of this):
1. Chambercin on Doanian Montegue (discovered in the refrigerator after photo)
2. Blanc Du Bois on Doanian Montegue (discovered in the refrigerator after photo)
3. Syrah on 1103P
4. Austin's blanc on Doaniana Pomeroy
5. Stover on Pomeroy
6. Captivator
7. Austin's blanc
8  Albarino
9. Delaicatessen
10.  Nero d'Alvola
11. Hildago or Wetumca
12. America
13. Chambercin x Norton on Pomeroy (after photo, they were discovered in the refrigerator
14. Victoria Red (Planted Sunday night after being discovered in the second refrigerator)
15. K1 ((Planted Sunday night after being discovered in the second refrigerator)

Blackberries (to the left of the grapes, not in the photo
Top row, left to right
1. Rosborough
2. Brison
3. Kiowa TP 986

Second row
Womack

The blackberries were purchased about a month ago (same time as pecan trees), but stayed in the refrigerator until today.  They were probaby too close to freezing (as in frozen) at least some of the time.  (Old/poor quality equipment.)

The blackberries are root cuttings and are not to freeze.  Of the 4, I only noticed damage on the Womack.  About 1/4 of the root cuttings had a white fuzzy mold growing.  Probably not a good sign.

Several of the cuttings froze, too.  They are supposed to do better, so I am not so worried about them.

I have a number of cutting still in the refrigerator (probably frozen) in case I have a chance to do grafting later in March:
Chamborcin
Stover (lots)
Delicatessen
Victoria Red
Albarino
Nero d'Alvola
Austing's Blanc
Captivator
K1

It will be interesting to see if any of this works.

Here is something that didn't work.  I tried to graft some Victoria Red to mustang, but the plastic tape was left outside and got glued to itself and I couldn't get it unwound enough to work with it it.  I was running out of time, and couldn't find my knife in the box (same workshop).  I wasn't familiar with what I was doing, so frustration got the better of me.

I quit and went inside.  It was getting dark, anyway.  I found the knife in the box almost as soon as I sat down and relaxed a bit.

Anyway, here is the field graft process I had settled on.  The tool needed is listed to the right. I'll try it again in a few weeks.
1. wrap 2 scion cutting ends (plastic wrap)
2. saw down the mustang (this moved to #1 when I tried it) (saw and pick-axe)
3. hammer the cleaver blade into the trunk (mallet and ear plugs)
4. slice up the scion cuttings to a 'v' for insertion (razor knife)
5. wet everyting down and insert the scion wood (water bottle)
6. wrap everything

Finally, since we are all so expectant about the weekend.  I hurt my right ear unloading metal pipes, Friday (I can't do that again without ear protectors!). I've got a rasp that garbles my speech if I talk at a normal level.  If I keep my comments soft, no problem, no rasp.  It is like torn speaker cone sound.  It is a bit better today.  I hope it goes away, but who knows.  

Update, first week of March

The goat fence is basically complete. Except for a chain on one gate, we are ready to let the goats out in their new pasture. Next up... the rain collection system.

Three weeks ago (2/9/13), we went to the annual TOFGA convention (Austin, this year).  Had a great time.