Sunday, December 24, 2006

This week: 22nd. Dec.

Weather Report Week Ending 22/12/06
Maximum Temperature for the week 35.1C (95F) on Wed.
Minimum Temperature for the week 9.2C (49F) on Sat.
Rainfall for the Week 14.4mm (41 points) 1 day of rain.
Weather data thanks to BOM & Nuriootpa Viticulture Research Centre.

Well some more rain for us this week. All of the rain fell over an 18 hour period on Thurs. night/ Fri. morning. Any rain we get from now on will be a problem for us as we are about to enter withholding periods on most of the chemicals we use to protect our vineyard from disease (mainly Downy and Powdery mildew). I was planning to put a protectant spray (Sulphur and either Copper or Mancozeb) out between Christmas and New year, however due to the rain we had last week I will now have to add an eradicant chemical (probably Metalaxyl), to eliminate any disease we may have picked up.

This week in the vineyard:
The sprayer is now ready to go on Boxing day (providing the weather is suitable). We spent some of last week getting ready for the rain, cleaning out gutters and fixing up down pipes etc. to catch all the water we could, our tanks are beginning to get fairly low! Our spray shed has large tanks (approx. 75,000 Litres), we use nearly all rain water to do our spraying - I think I will just have enough water for this next spray and then they will be empty. If we need to do another spray I will probably need to use mains water.

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