Here at AV we've been working with some new soil-sampling equipment: our power probe and electromagnetic soil electrical conductivity sensor. We've taken data collected via these tools and integrated it with old-fashioned soil pit analysis. The result is a way to spatially view numerous aspects of...

If your vineyard has been declining and you can't seem to understand why, there's a chance it's your soil. You could be facing a simple nutritional imbalance, toxicity, or nematodes. Maybe you have an abrupt change in texture and water can't percolate more than a couple feet. Like all things, you...

Two years ago, I wrote an article on AI in the vineyard for WBM. Feel free to read that article here…if you want. Otherwise, my basic argument was that although AI will eventually play a role in how we farm grapes, it’s a long way off compared to other industries and even other crops. We who grow...

A measurement of phenolic content of grapes describes grape potential. It characterizes grape maturation, block to block variation, and variation between vintages. It is an important part of describing raw material coming into a winery and is often the first indication that a wine lot may have poor...

Off-Season, On Point: Essential Prep for Superior Grapevines A new season is just around the corner! As we enter Fall, our off-season presents the opportunity for our nursery to reflect, recharge, and prepare for the coming year. To ensure a successful start, here are just a few of the essential...

It's not for the faint of heart Going no-till certainly has been picking up steam in recent years, and overall it’s a good thing. When I first got involved in viticulture back in 2010 I was living in Italy. Like a lot of Mediterranean viticultural areas, there was a tendency to disc everything all...

I once saw a commercial that said: “forget everything you thought you knew about slip covers”. So I did. Admittedly I don’t know a lot about slip covers. I do know quite a bit about plant stress. Up until recently, our constant flow of data on soil moisture has been studied along with weekly spot...

This week is supposed to be hot. Really hot. Any temperature over 105 degrees will cause damage and usually the surface of exposed fruit is 10-15 degrees F hotter than ambient temperature. We’re probably going to see some of that this week. A loose canopy protects fruit better than a tight VSP. For...

Vines' nutrient needs vary across the season, and bloom is a particularly sensitive time. Leading up to bloom, you want to make sure your micronutrients are on point. Boron and Zinc for instance are crucial if you want to ensure good set. On the other hand, too much nitrogen can reprogram your...

As a convenient push-button source of measurement data, near infrared (NIR) analysis has significant potential to supplement chemical analysis solutions for testing, particularly for key parameters such as organic carbon. The use of NIR is gaining momentum as progress with the complicated business...