Back from Memorial Day

Yesterday, I went to a friend's house for a cookout and jam session. I'm still getting over the cold that hit so hard last week. Played guitar and sang (when I could!) 'til the late afternoon.

Today, we're feeding the vines with a drip injection of about 200 lbs. of Calcium Nitrate. That works out to less than a third of an ounce per plant. Nitrate is immediately available to the young shoots, and it doesn't acidify the soil like other nitrogen sources. Besides being used by the rapidly-growing shoots, this nutrition goes to the developing buds that will result in next year's fruit. The plant needs this in the period before bloom. An application after bloom has begun can adversely affect this year's crop.

Calcium is an excellent soil builder in clay soils. The calcium ion has two positive charges which allow it to bind to clay particles, inducing clumping. Clay particles are very fine and tend to pack together tightly. This calcium-induced clumping reduces soil compaction and allows air to reach down into the soil. The soil below the vines is rich with earthworms, who further aerate the soil with their tunneling.

We're irrigating for a couple of hours after the "fertigation" to move the nutrients below the weed zone. The recent late rains have boosted the weeds, and we will need to spray another Roundup application soon. Before that, we'll need to finish suckering. There are a couple of acres that need still the suckers removed. Suckers are the shoots arising from undesired locations on the vine: from the base & up the trunk. Every year, we remove these to maintain the desired structure of the vine.