Since this introduction we have actually accomplished every one of the next steps listed on the last slide! Dale has learned a lot over the last 9 years. Both our winery and vineyard practices continue to evolve accordingly.

 

After doing a fair amount of reading on permaculture techniques, I began to pay much closer attention to how the wind and water behave on our property. This prompted me to plant a number of trees as wind/snow breaks, but this will take years to have a noticeable effect. It gave me an appreciation for working with the land, however, and have adopted more organic practices. I draw the line at 'Biodynamic wine making'. That's still seems just to weird for me! :-)

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In all of my reading most good winemakers' advice seems to be: "Use good fruit and get out of the way." Consequently, I don't get too creative in the winery (mostly because I don't yet know how!) and have been more focused on the vineyard. Eventually, I may get crazy and use a different strain of yeast, or change my processing somehow but for now, I have plenty to worry about in the vineyard: 

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Soil improvement - The top 18"-24" of our soil is fairly good ashy silt loam soil (they used to run cattle on our ranch), but below that it gives way to a pretty solid clay loam.  Ever since planting, each vine has received a shovel full of compost in Spring. For the last two years, thanks to my son in law, Brooke, who is a landscape professional in Seattle area, I have added a layer of arborist chips to suppress weed growth, hold more moisture, and add organic matter. This seems like a 'Captain Obvious' technique, but I've never seen a vineyard do it, and I'm waiting to see how this will effect soil temps, bud break, etc.

Irrigation - I started out resisting this, but with better observation, I'm learning the vines may benefit from some supplemental water depending on weather during certain times of growth. I've recently started tracking the dates & stages of the vines growth and comparing to accumulated heat units (GDD) to figure out when to water. Will hook up some gravity drip lines to help with this in 2025. 

Gopher control! We built and installed an owl box to attract Barn Owls, a gopher's natural predator. Then we learned that the Great Horned Owl (which we hear most often) prey on the Barn Owl! Oops. Currently, I trap any gophers on our property including any that make it into the vineyard. The dogs also do a pretty good job of digging them out but usually cause a lot of collateral damage!  

Bird deterrents - So far, we have not had the bird losses that my neighbor, Steve, experiences every year. I attribute it to the vineyard location right in the heart of all the human activity here at the Funky D Ranch, or our wonderful vineyard dogs(sure), or maybe it's my expert marksmanship with my Daisy pump action. (That darn Flicker won't be back I'll bet ya!) We lose a little fruit some years, but it's tolerable. I also hang shiny/spinny things, and put up a couple of questionably scary bird deterrents every year (fake owls, horse heads, etc). I hope to never have to net my vines, as that seems like work.

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I currently know of three other Marquette growers in the area and we have started communicating and comparing notes. One of my fellow growers even helped with harvest this last year! Thanks Cynthia, from The Little French Farm!