Amalie Robert Estate Climate Update: 2006 August
Hello,
August is in the record books and we are entering the crucial month of September. During September, I will take cluster samples and report maturity and climate data specific to your blocks. It seems like only a few months ago that we were flowering and hopeful for enough fruit to fill fermenters. Someone out there, it appears, was hoping a little too hard.
The 2 week weather forecast I have seen calls for warm daytime temperatures in the mid 80-90 degree range and nighttime temperatures in the 50s. The Pinot Noir crop load has been reduced to one cluster per shoot with wings removed. The canopy remains very green and is holding up to the dry summer very well.
For everyone who has yellow jacket issues, may I recommend baiting your yellow jacket traps with salmon scraps. We have found this extremely effective and deeply rewarding, as I am allergic to bee stings. Using 30 traps for 48 hours resulted in 1.5 plastic Safeway bags full of dead yellow jackets. We mostly place the traps on endposts that are near blackberry bushes where we will also have harvest bins.
Here are the climate numbers for August. We have received 503 degree days through the 30th of August, which brings us to a total of 1,749 degree days for 2006. For comparison, at this time in 2005 we had logged 1,629 degree days. So, we are still ahead by about 120 degree days, or about 7.4% over last year. Our highest hi was 103.4 and the lowest high was 90.9. The lowest low was 43.9 and the highest low was 46.8.
The only moisture we received was 0.05 inches on August 30th which brings the year to 29.20 inches and is 9.10 inches above last year's total of 20.10 inches through August 30th. Last year we were a bit more fortunate and recorded 0.06 inches during August.
Looking back to last year's September conditions, I see degree days of about 360 and 1.7 inches of rain. For those who like to "LET 'EM HANG!", we picked up another 60 degree days and 1.6 inches of rain through October 19. As a reminder, the 2003 vintage gave us about 645 degree days in September. Steve Goff has been really working his crystal ball, and when I get a look at it I will let everyone know when we will be picking.
Something to note in this big berried year is the August degree days and nighttime temperatures compared to the last 2 years. It seems to me, we have been cooling a bit more this August than in previous years. It is eerie that the July temperature numbers for 2004 and 2005 are the same. Here is a brief table with the numbers (in case you don't have enough to think about already.)
Degree Days and Night Time Temperatures
July
Hi
Low
August
Hi
Low
Total
2004
603
48.30
44.70
556
51.80
49.70
1,159
2005
548
49.70
46.10
568
48.30
45.40
1,116
2006
590
49.70
46.10
503
46.80
43.90
1,093
Average
580
49.23
45.63
542
48.97
46.33
1,123
Thanks,
Ernie