I visited the property on this October day for a general inspection. Everything was in order; no problems to report. A description of current events follows.

Orchard V-Float

The orchard is in good shape with the trees looking a bit haggard, as they do post harvest. We usually experience leaf drop compared to younger trees which retain longer. On the trees that were still holding leaves there was little salt burn as evidenced during previous drought years. The orchard floor had been Floated recently giving a great showcase appearance.

Tree Removal

The former PG&E cable-pull site has been maxed out and burning under the high tension wires is probably no longer is an option. The South road has been a staging area for trees to be cut up for a couple of years now. The wood is ground and the chips are being uniformly spread on the driveable portion of the South road. I noted that the North orchard road is being used for some overflow of branches; possibly only because it is localized to the removal area and more efficient.

Post Harvest Irrigation

Some micro-sprinklers have been tapped into the drip line. These increase the flow of water to the replants; giving them a fighting chance to make it. It is a tough beginning. They are competing with their mature neighbors and there is not as much sunlight exposure sometimes but plenty of drying heat. Notice that there are some weeds growing along the berm. Tractor implements can do little there.

The drip system had been running a 24 hour set at the time of my inspection visit. Well #3 was supplying water at 2,150 GPM according to its flow meter. The Vineyard received water the previous week. The trees and vines require water so that they will have stored the necessary energy reserves for the start of the next growing season.

The irrigator despite the language barrier showed me how to adjust the drip booster VFD. In a follow up post we will do a deep dive on this topic.

Vineyard – Till and Pack

The vineyard is looking very fine, post harvest with very clean removal of the grape clusters noted this year. Only randomly scattered grapes (now raisins) remain still attached. They were quite sweet although having seeds in them, a bit crunchy. There was one metal end of row post that was a harvest casualty. Looks like the grape picker may have clipped it… I’m sure it can be reset.

Weed control was in progress with a tractor pulled disc doing battle against Bermuda grass between the vine rows.

Interesting to observe in our Till and Pack operation how close that the trailing roller comes to the neighbors new trees. Granted, the rig that we are using is a large tractor pulling a long train but our driver appears to be using every inch of available real estate to make his 180 degree turn. We were wise to insist that the neighbor farmer make the adjustments when he planted.

Lastly, a look at a backlit vine and see that the trunk is showing growth maturity. It wasn’t that long ago that we were planting root stock it seems.