“How about this weather, hey?”

How many times have you had this conversation in the last week?! Because it feels like it’s all I’m talking about at the moment!

And for good reason, I guess. Who thought we’d still be lighting the fire at the Cellar Bar in the middle of November?!

For those of you who don’t live in Adelaide and have your own floods to worry about, we had some pretty crazy weather here last weekend. As I write this, the clean-up continues and pockets of our community (and members of staff!) remain without power almost a week post-storm.

And while it looks like most vineyards escaped any major damage, I’ll have to update you on those details once I get this week’s CropWatch report (not until tomorrow, unfortunately).

Damage or no damage, we all got a significant amount of rain and that is causing big headaches for our growers.

Before we delve into why that is, let’s first have a quick look at what CropWatch had to say this time last week…

 

2022 Growing season (up to Friday 11th November)

Vines are now one E-L stage behind (in both early and late varieties) compared to last year’s late season.

That just means that if we thought last year was slow to get going, this year is even slower (not surprisingly)

This contrasts with being eight E-L stages behind that recorded for early varieties in 2020 and two stages for late varieties.

So, 2020 got off to a ripper start with some nice warm weather early on. Currently, our early ripening varieties are EIGHT E-L stages behind this time two years ago. It’s definitely safe to say we’re off to a slow start!

 

If you need a reminder of E-L stages you can have a look here.

 

This is where things were at last Friday…

Most Advanced
E-L 17           
13 leaves separated, inflorescence well developed, single flowers separated.
Macclesfield Chardonnay

Least Advanced
E-L 15    8 leaves separated, shoot elongating rapidly, single flowers in compact groups.
Sauvignon Blanc Lenswood, Woodside

 

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Concerns for 2022

Given this slow start to the season and the volume of rain we’ve had in recent weeks/months, the big worry for growers right now is…

 

Downy mildew 

Reports of downy mildew primary infection are being reported from all areas of the Adelaide Hills.

Even vineyards with strong control spray programs (both preventative and protective) are finding signs of primary infection. It’s clear that disease pressure is severe this season.

 

We’ve talked about Downy Mildew before, so you can get heaps more information in this post over here.

But, just quickly…

Downy Mildew is a pain the backside disease. Once you have it in your crop you pretty much have it for life. The key to keeping it under control is to keep an eye on the weather.

The weather conditions conducive to an infection period for powdery mildew are…

At least 10 mm rainfall over a 24-hour period during which the temperature does not go below 10 degrees Celsius (commonly referred to as “10:10:24”).

In these conditions, dormant downy mildew spores erupt from the soil and “splash” (or mist) onto the canopy of the vines. And when I say “dormant”, they can happily live in the soil for up to 10 years!

This process is the “primary infection” – the spores have now infected the leaves along with the developing flowers/bunches.

 

Prevention and control

The key to controlling downy mildew in vines is having a super tight spray program using both preventative and eradicant fungicides.

 

The problem for some vineyards is that they are unable to get sprays onto the vines for one of two reasons.

Either the ground underneath the vines is so wet taking spray equipment into the vineyard is an impossible task.

Or, they’re struggling to find a rain-free window of time to get the sprays on (and not have them washed off straight after)!

 

How vineyards handle disease management will be the key to a successful 2022/23 growing season.

 

Once I get this week’s CropWatch report through tomorrow, I will update this post to let you know how the Hills faired after last weekend’s storms.

 

UPDATE

And here is what CropWatch had to say…

Weather conditions 

Temperatures at Lenswood ranged from 4.2°C on Thursday morning to 22.0°C recorded last Friday. 

Rainfall was significant across the region in the last week. The southern vineyards in the region were exposed to more significant rainfall.
Kuitpo        73.6mm
Macclesfield    67.8mm
Forreston    49.2mm
Woodside    49.2mm
Lenswood    47.8mm
Balhannah    47.4mm

Downy Mildew

Most growers have been aggressive with their downy mildew control programs and consequently there have been no reports of secondary infections in the region to date.

However, last weekend was challenging in that rainfall recordings across the region were over 45 mm meaning that at least 9 days of protection was lost (rule of thumb 1 day of protection lost for every 5mm of rain).

In addition, the current forecast indicates a 50% chance of 20mm over this weekend (which we definitely got! – more on this next week). This means that a further primary infection period is likely.