This week: 27th Oct.

Weather Report Week Ending 27/10/06

Maximum Temperature for the week 30.1C (86F) on Tue.
Minimum Temperature for the week 0.0C (32F) on Sat.
Rainfall for the Week 0.0mm (0 points) 0 days of rain.
Weather data thanks to BOM & Nuriootpa Viticulture Research Centre.

Yet again no rainfall recorded this week. Some of our winery reps are telling us to watch out for restricted growth - I have not seen any in our vineyard, however it will be a problem in some vineyards this year. Restricted growth could mean there will be more sunburn damage in those blocks later in the year. As I reported earlier, we had frost in the Barossa on Sat. morning, we have had some light damage to growing tips on some of our blocks, however I do not think we have lost much crop - we will know more after flowering. Chardonnay is in full flower this week, other varieties will be flowering in the next couple of weeks.

This week in the vineyard:

We have put on our 2nd fugicide spray. We have now finished mowing covercrops and will now spray anything that regrows. Watershoots are also being removed at the moment.
This picture shows some of the frost damage in the Stockwell/Light Pass areas. While small areas of the Barossa like this have been severely affected by frost, most of the Barossa is unaffected and the impact on our total crush is likley to be minimal.

FROST FROST FROST

It had to happen. We have had some frost damage. Sat. morning (21st), the temp. at Nurootpa dropped to 0C (32F), it appears to have gotten a bit colder here as some of our vineyards have been moderately frosted. We are hoping the damage is not too bad as the fruit zone does not appear to be badly affected, however we have lost most of our growing tips.
The temp trace shows Friday night going into Saturday morning. We do not think that the temperature spent very long below 0C. I will have more to report on the amount of damage we have suffered with my regular report on the weekend.
Temp trace thanks to Weatherzone and Nuri viticulture research centre.

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.

This week: 13th Oct.

Weather Report Week Ending 13/10/06
Maximum Temperature for the week 36.8C (98F) on Thur.
Minimum Temperature for the week 4.4C (40F) on Mon.
Rainfall for the Week 0.0mm (0 points) 0 days of rain.
Weather data thanks to BOM & Nuriootpa Viticulture Research Centre.

Still no sign of rain. The high temperature on Thurs. this week have set a new record for this month ( since 1952). The previous high temperature on record was 36.6 set on the 12th of 2004. The very low temperatures that I reported last week did not do any damage to our vineyards, however some other Barossa vineyards have been severly damaged. The worst damage I have heard about has been to some Eden valley vineyards and some of the premium vineyards in the northern Barossa. I will know more next week.

This week in the vineyard :
I have been away on holidays the last 2 weeks, that is why there have been no new photos to show you. I am home again and will post some new photos next week. While I have been away most of our covercrop has been mowed down again - probably for the last time. We will be getting our next fungicide spray out this week and soon after that killing off the cover crop.