Saturday, October 21, 2006

This week: 20th Oct.

Weather Report Week Ending 20/10/06

Maximum Temperature for the week 30.6C (87F) on Tue.
Minimum Temperature for the week 3.3C (38F) on Sun.
Rainfall for the Week 0.0mm (0 points) 0 days of rain.
Weather data thanks to BOM & Nuriootpa Viticulture Research Centre.

The drought is really starting to bite here now. Adelaide has now had level 2 water restrictions imposed. Barossa irrigators are being limited to 70% of our water allocations (we are expecting harsher restrictions later in the season if we do not get some rain soon). The vines are continuing to grow very rapidly, we have the first signs of flowering in Chardonnay this week (at least 3 weeks earlier than normal). I think the vines know what sort of season we are in for this year and so they are in a big hurry.

This week in the vineyard :
We are continuing to mow covercrops to minimize our frost risk. I have started putting out our 2nd fungicide spray. Normally we would put on three sprays before flowering, however we have skipped our normal 2nd spray because of how early flowering is this year.

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