This week 20th June 2008

Sorry that I haven't posted for a while - we have been very busy on our Nuffield global focus tour. We are currently in NW Oklahoma, in beef and oil country. Our group is having a amazing time, we have been looking at all kinds of things including a very interesting visit to Oklahoma state university, where we talked to a cereal seed breeder and turf grass researchers (among others). We also had meetings with deans of most of the agriculture related departments of the university. Earlier in the week we spent some time in Maryland, this was a very interesting part of the world, we even got to spend an evening on an oyster skip jack with a real local character giving us a run down on some of the local seafood history. I haven't had a chance to organize any photos for this post, but I will make sure that I have some next time.
They have not had much rain at home in the last week, I believe that there has only been about 3mm (the Nuriootpa weather station has been offline for several days again this week).

Delayed Flight

We are currently in Boston(USA) waiting for a delayed flight to Washington DC. So I thought I would write just a little about what we have been up to. We spent the last 3 days in France. While there we visited a number of small (by our standards) farms. It appears to us that these farms are only viable because of the EU subsidies that they receive (even though it is obviously very productive land). We also visited the Rungies international market early monday morning to see fruit, veggies, cheese and meat being traded there. They also trade seafood and flowers there, however they were not open on Monday. This was a very impressive visit with fruit and veg, that I have never seen before being traded. There are something like 25,000 trucks that pick up or deliver to this market every day. Last night we stayed in a really nice French country villa. The photo shows pigs ready for sale.

This week 13th June

Good news for the Barossa this week. We have recieved 15.8mm of rain, to keep our vineyard going. We are still well behind our average rainfall for the year, we have only had 95mm so far (our average up till the end of this month is 203mm). I am still hopeful that we will get the very wet winter that we really need.

I am currently in Chartres, France on the Nuffield global focus tour. We have been having an incredible time. Our group of 11 (8 Aussies, 2 Kiwi's and a token Canadian) are all feeling rather tired. We are having to cope with very early mornings and late nights as well as jet lag and long sessions visiting farms and listening to other presentations. I have learnt more about the world dairy industry in the last 2 weeks than I will probably ever be able to use. But it is not just dairy, we have been to pig, sheep, beef, cropping, poultry, thoroughbred horse and seafood farm operations and have had a chance to question the owners/managers of all of them (we have even been to some farms that I think they actually farm tractors, one Irish farm had more than 60). I do not have any photos to show this week, as I haven't had time to download them from my camera.

Touring NZ

We are in NZ at the moment. We will be leaving this fabulous country tomorrow afternoon to fly to Ireland via Hong Kong. We have been having an amazing time looking at all kinds of farms and talking to farmers and other people about farming. The first photo shows Ackaroa harbour on the Banks Peninsular. The second photo is of Mt. Hutt taken from near Methven.

This week 30th May 2008

I am currently in NZ. I have been visiting the Marlborough grape growing region this week as part of my Nuffield Scholarship. On Sunday I will be meeting up with some of the other Aussie scholars (and some assorted Kiwi's) to start our global focus tour. We will be spending 6 weeks travelling together, looking at farms and farming related things all over the world. Tonight I am staying with one of the NZ scholars that will be travelling with us from Methven south of Christchurch.
Just for the record the Barossa Valley has recorded 11.2mm of rain in the last week, sounds like mostly from a thunder storm.

This week 23rd May 2008

My weather data for this week is incomplete due to the Nuriootpa weather station going down after rainfall last weekend.
We have had just over 40mm of rain in the last week. I am writing this from Sydney airport, on my way out of Australia. I am just about to start my travel as part of my Nuffield scholarship. Today I will be flying to Christchurch in New Zealand. I will try to update you all as I am travelling, and let you know where I am and what I am doing. I will also try to let you know what is happening at home in the vineyard, however I will not be back home for another 16 weeks - so there will be no photos of home and only limited weather data. I am sorry if anyone needs this info but you should be able to access it at weatherzone.com. The photo today shows part of our contract hand pruning gang doing a hand cleanup on some Shiraz vines, on a cool misty morning in the Barossa Valley.

This week: 16th. May 2008

Weather Report Week Ending 16/5/08
Maximum Temperature for the week 22.6C (73F) on Wed. 6 readings above our monthly average of 17.3C.
Minimum Temperature for the week 3.7C (39F) on Mon. 2 readings above our monthly average of 6.5C.
Rainfall for the Week 0.0mm (0 points) 0 days of rainfall recorded.
Weather data thanks to BOM & Nuriootpa Viticulture Research Centre.

Another typical week for us here. Reasonably pleasant days with quite cold nights. No rainfall again this week – however there is some in the forecast for us.

This week in the vineyard:
I am finishing up a number of jobs at the moment, as I am leaving to start my Nuffield scholarship this coming Friday. We have started our pruning in earnest this week. I have had a contract pruning machine working during the week and a hand contract gang also started on Thursday. The hand gang will probably be here for the next 2-3 months. The photo shows a young block of Sauv. Blanc. in the front with the neighbours Grenache behind, still holding on to their leaves, although most of the vine leaves have now fallen.