This week: 25th. May

Weather Report Week Ending 25/5/07

Maximum Temperature for the week 20.0C (68F) on Fri. 2 days above our average.

Minimum Temperature for the week 6.2C (43F) on Thurs. 6 days above our average.

Rainfall for the Week 11.6mm (33 points) 5 days of rain.

Weather data thanks to BOM & Nuriootpa Viticulture Research Centre.

A little bit of a damp week this week with rain recorded on 5 days. There has not however been a large amount of rain. We still need nearly 30mm of rain to make our average for the month of May. At least April was well above average - we need average or above rainfall for the next few months to help relieve the severity of our current drought.

This week in the vineyard:
We are continuing to prune, we have now finished blocks of young Semillon and Sauv. Blanc. Our cover crop is virtually all up now. We have only planted every second row this year to try to save some money and also reduce our water usage. We normally plant every row as a green manure crop to improve our soil. This year I have had to make the hard decision between conserving organic carbons in our soil or reducing our water use. This week's photo is a view over the Barossa from along Rifle Range road. The town in the distance is Nuriootpa. The Barossa ranges are now very green, as you can see.

This week: 18th. May

Weather Report Week Ending 18/5/07

Maximum Temperature for the week 22.9C (73F) on Sun. and Mon.
Minimum Temperature for the week 5.3C (41F) on Wed.
Rainfall for the Week 1.4mm (4 points) 2 days of rain.
Weather data thanks to BOM & Nuriootpa Viticulture Research Centre.


A fairly pleasant week, weather wise this week. The forecast promised a lot this week however the weather failed to deliver any substantial rainfall for us. We have been getting enough rainfall to keep things nice and wet but without any runoff. The story has been different in western New South Wales, with very good falls in the lower Murray river catchments - we will see if this translates into runoff, I'm not holding my breath. Our maximum temperatures have been above average, in fact all were above 20C except for Friday which was below our long term average of 17.6C.



This week in the vineyard:

All of the cover crop we are going to plant is now in, the first of it has started to germinate (as you can see in the photo). We are continuing to prune where we can, we are having to fight our way through quite a few leaves that are continuing to hang on to the vines (could be the warmer temperatures that I mentioned earlier). This week I have had to do my Chem cert. re-accreditation, this is a system in Australia to ensure that commercial chemical users are properly trained. We need to do a course every 5 years to receive our accreditation.

This week: 11th. May

Weather Report Week Ending 11/5/07
Maximum Temperature for the week 22.1C (71F) on Mon.
Minimum Temperature for the week 4.6C (40F) on Thur.
Rainfall for the Week 1.0mm (3 points) 2 days of rain.
Weather data thanks to BOM & Nuriootpa Viticulture Research Centre.

A reasonably fine week this week. While we continue to have quite warm temperatures, and after the rain of last week, everything is growing very rapidly. Our minimum temperatures this week have all been above average except for the one cold night on Thurs. This probably means that our soil temperatures will also be above average for this time of year.

This week in the vineyard:
We have (at last) finished spreading all of the fowl manure (not a very pleasant job). I am now putting in our cover crop as fast as I possibly can. We are planting a blend of Tritacale and Barley this year. I mostly plant Tritacale because it grows well in our lighter soils, and the straw doesn't break down very quickly over Summer. This year we are adding some Barley because I don't have a lot of Triticale available to me and I am trying to spread what I have as far as I possibly can. We continue to prune our vines, with our first block of young Semillon nearly finished.

This week: 4th. May

Weather Report Week Ending 4/5/07
Maximum Temperature for the week 24.9C (77F) on Tue.
Minimum Temperature for the week 9.5C (49F) on Tue.
Rainfall for the Week 69.2mm (198 points) 5 days of rain.
Weather data thanks to BOM & Nuriootpa Viticulture Research Centre.

Rain has continued all week. We recieved 104.8mm of rain last month, this has been our wettest April in more than 11 years. In fact we were only 27mm below our wettest April on record (131.7mm in 1961). This has been some of the best weather news I have had to report since I started this blog more than 7 months ago. As long as we now get normal Winter rainfall, our next growing season is looking very good. We do still have the looming problem of water restrictions for next season to temper our enthusiasm.

This week in the vineyard:
We have started pruining now, it is a little early but the sooner we start the sooner we will finish. We have also been continuing to spread fowl manure and working it in, although the rain has slowed this down a little. I am now having to wait for our reactive soils to dry out, last week they were too hard to get the disk to penetrate. Still that is farming, and we will just have to wait a few days.