2006 NY & PA Pest Management Guidelines are available on-line at: http://ipmguidelines.org/grapes/
If you prefer a hard copy version you can contact your local Lake Erie Regional Grape Program Extension office or local county extension office for partner counties (Cattaraugus, Chautauqua, Erie, NY, Erie, PA and Niagara).
Download Adobe Reader - free software that lets you view, print, search, and share Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) files.

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Grape Farm Business Management

Barry Shaffer

Lower Yielding (<5.5 t/a) Vineyards Can Still Be In A Profitable Operation

We still have a lot of vineyard acres that average less than 5 or 5.5 t/a. With current market conditions, these acres are likely to be breaking even or more likely, showing losses. What can a juice grape farmer do to earn a decent income and sustain a profitable operation?

The two main ways to improve will mean increasing income and/or decreasing costs. Here are some ideas for you to ponder:

INCREASING INCOME Off-farm income Keep crop insurance Alternative crops Custom work       Harvesting       Crop thinning       Mechanical pruning       Spraying Boosting Crop Potential       Fix wet areas       Proper pH and fertilization       Fill in skips!       Block by block pest management Add higher yielding vineyards

DECREASING COSTS Keep block by block yield records and do 3-5 year averages Consistently profitable vineyards (cash cows) Average vineyard blocks Poor blocks (dogs) fix up or get rid of! Drop poor performing vineyards (dogs)! Some growers are finding that their gross income goes down but their net income goes UP by dropping vineyards that average less than 4 t/a. Block by block pest management Shop around for inputs. Is buying in bulk containers sensible for your operation? Pay for inputs with cash or line of credit. Vendor credit is much more costly! Mechanical pruning with hand follow-up can save money, more important with mediocre yielding vineyards. Switch to lower priced crop chemicals such as generic formulations. Go through every line item on your budget to see areas that could be reduced without hurting yields.

I'm sure you can think of some other ideas in both of these categories. Good luck!

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Grape Cultural Practices

Hans Walter-Peterson

Information on grape imports at Viticulture 2007

I subscribe to a service that sends me occasional emails with summaries of various media articles related to grapes from around the world. One of the stories that was in the most recent email I received discussed the recent increase in grape exports from Peru, which increased by 33% during the October - December 2006 period. The story also mentions that the largest importer of Peruvian grapes is the United States, which accounts for 42% of Peru's exports alone (you can read the article at http://www.livinginperu.com/news/3085).

We occasionally receive these "nuggets" of information about the international grape market from various sources such as this, but if you look at the story I just mentioned, it doesn't give many more details other than what I included above. What kind of grapes are they? What products are they being used for? Is that just a one-year phenomenon, or indicative of a trend? It's tough to get that kind of information all from one place.

But this year, growers have a chance to hear about how international grape production is impacting the market for Concord and Niagara grapes at Viticulture 2007. Greg MaGill is the broker in charge of grape concentrates for the Joseph W. Ciatti Co., the world's largest bulk wine brokerage. Greg will be speaking about what is going on in the bulk grape market around the world, separating the fact and fiction of how grape production in other parts of the world such as South America and China are impacting the market that Lake Erie grapes have to compete in.

This is a topic that gets discussed a lot at our Coffee Pot meetings during the growing season, but with no real answers. Come to 'Juice Grape Day' at Viticulture 2007 and hear the facts (separated from the fiction) for yourselves.

There's Still Room on the Bus!
There is still room on the bus that will transport you to and from Rochester for 'Juice Grape Day' on Friday, February 9. The cost is only $5/person thanks to support from several of the area processors. Click here to read the flyer with all of the details on where and when the bus will leave, or call Linda Aures at 716-672-5296.

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Niagara Buds

A grower recently brought in a couple of canes from his Niagara vineyard that had a few basal buds starting to swell up after the spat of warm weather we had a couple of weeks ago (see Picture 1). Needless to say, these buds are very vulnerable to low temperatures now that they have deacclimated and started to push, and won't be viable come spring after the cold weather we have had.

Picture 1

Picture 2

We sent a couple of other canes from this same vineyard to Martin Goffinet in Geneva to have them run through their bud freezing procedure to see how cold hardy they are. We will pass that information along when have the hardiness information, but Martin did notice that the base of some of the buds (and the future shoot) were browning and appeared water soaked (see Picture 2). This was on buds that still had bud scales attached and so at a quick glance, look like they have not swelled up at all.

At this point, I would recommend that growers take a close look at buds in their Niagara vineyards to see if there is any evidence of bud swelling. It would probably be a good idea to cut some buds open as well to see if any browning or bud injury or death can be seen. Growers should think about leaving higher bud numbers on their Niagaras, or just staying out of them for the time being, until we get some more information about the hardiness of the buds we sent to Geneva.

We haven't heard about the same phenomenon in Concords from anybody. Steve Luce at the Experiment Station in Geneva did some bud hardiness tests at the beginning of January and found the LT50 (the temperature that kills 50% of the buds) for Concords at Geneva was about -14ºF. As I mentioned, when we get more hardiness information from Geneva, we will make sure to pass it along.

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Weather Facts

Tim Weigle and Edith Byrne

Fri., 1/26 80% chance of occasional snow showers, mainly before 10am. High near 21° and breezy. Wind chill values between -7 and 3. Friday night: A 50% chance of snow. Mostly cloudy, with a low near 19°. Sat., 1/27 A 50% chance of snow. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 33°. Breezy, with a west wind between 18 and 23 mph. Saturday night: 60% chance of snow showers likely. Cloudy, with a low near 21°. Sun., 1/28 60% chance of snow showers likely. Cloudy, with a high near 24°. Sunday night: 60% chance of snow showers likely. Mostly cloudy, with a low near 15°. Mon., 1/29 60% chance of snow showers likely. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 24°. Monday night: 40% chance of scattered snow showers. Mostly cloudy, with a low near 16°. Tues., 1/30 60% chance of snow showers likely. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 26°. Tuesday night: 60% chance of snow showers likely. Mostly cloudy, with a low near 15°. Wed., 1/31 60% chance of snow showers likely. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 24°. Average precipitation amount for January is 2.58" - we have already 4.77"! The forecast above sounds like a broken record: 60% chance of snow... what remains to be seen is how much precipitation we get and how much ABOVE average this month ends up. Don't forget that you can follow the DAILY high and low (updated daily) by visiting http://lergp.cce.cornell.edu/Dailys2007.htm. From the main weather page (http://lergp.cce.cornell.edu/weather.htm) you can navigate to other weather information/pages that we maintain and make available for your information. Weather Facts Information: through Wednesday 1/24/2007 High Low Pct. GDDs Jan. GDDs Apr. GDDs 30 25 0.07 0 3 0   Jan. accum. Apr. accum. per/day accum. Average GDDs: 1.33 0.00 0.01 January Precipitation: 4.77"   Average Precipitation (January) 2.59 "   Year-to-Date Precipitation 4.77"   Average High 35.5°     Average Low 22.7°

The weather proverb from the Farmer's Almanac this week is:

A summerish January, a winterish spring . . .

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UPCOMING EVENTS:

Lake Erie Regional Grape Program Extension Team Members:

Andy Muza	Extension Agent, Erie County, PA Cooperative Extension	(814) 825-0900
Barry Shaffer	Area Extension Farm Business Management Educator	(716) 679-3185
Hans Walter-Peterson	Area Extension Grape Cultural Practices Educator	(716) 672-2191
Tim Weigle	Sr. Area Extension Educator, Grape IPM	(716) 672-6830

For any questions or comments on the format of this update please contact Tim Weigle at: timweigl@netsync.net

The Lake Erie Regional Grape Program Website is maintained by the NYS Grape IPM Program

412 E. Main Street, Fredonia, N.Y. 14063

Telephone: 716-672-5296

E-mail: Webmaster