This week: 7th. December

Weather Report Week Ending 7/12/07

Maximum Temperature for the week 35.4C (95F) on Thurs. 4 readings above our monthly average of 27.1C.
Minimum Temperature for the week 10.1C (50F) on Thurs. 4 readings above our monthly average of 12.3C.
Rainfall for the Week 0.0mm (0 points) 0 days of rain.
Weather data thanks to BOM & Nuriootpa Viticulture Research Centre.


A fairly typical summer week for us this week. A couple of warm to hot days. Most of the rest of the week has been quite nice. There have been some quite strong winds with thunderstorms in other parts of SA, that have caused a number of bushfires. Some of these fires are still burning out of control, but nowhere near the Barossa.

This week in the vineyard:

We have now finished what I hope will be our second last fungicide spray for the season. We can now turn our attention to weeds (particularly Caltrop) that are coming up in the vineyard.

I have not been getting a lot done in the vineyard (again) this week. All of our wineries are having their Christmas shows at the moment. I also spent one day this week on a on a bus trip organized by the Barossa Valley Tech. group, to the riverland. We looked at a private vineyard at Blanchetown, and several corporate vineyards near Waikerie. We also looked at a vineyard near Loxton that has been severely deprived of water because of the drought.

The first photo (a merger of 7 photos) shows some smoke haze from the bushfires in SA, over the Barossa (not enough to affect grape quality). The second photo shows Dr. Mike McCarthy on the riverland bus trip, inspecting some vines that have not been given any irrigation in the last 2 years.