Climate Update: Mid-April 2023
Hello and Welcome,
This is the Mid-April 2023 Climate Update from Amalie Robert Estate. Well, this has been a cold, wet (rain, hail AND snow), windy and generally speaking, arduous start to the Willamette Valley growing season. But it is not all bad (yet), the daffodils finally broke ground and graced us with their blooms. The swallows have arrived and are nesting (they also have a schedule to keep). And even YOU have had a couple extra days to complete your National Mathematics Exam this year, aka form 1040.
But the Pinot Noir vines, they are holding fast. No bud break as of the 15th of April. We don’t know what it’s like where you are, but we will be lucky to just reach the historical AVERAGE high temperature this month. And it has rained, at least some, and in some cases significantly more than that, every farming day. We are living the dream… So you don’t have to.
The BIG Picture
Got peas? We got peas. We got acres and acres of peas. And the vines are loving it. These are Austrian Winter Peas to be exact. Ernie drilled those seeds in last fall after harvest along with some grass. This being Oregon, we would like to clarify that it is “forage grass” we are growing, not the medicinal or recreational kind.
Along with buckwheat in the summer, peas are superheroes in the cover crop idiom. Peas are one of the forage crops we grow that fix nitrogen in the soil. Since many, if not most, or potentially even all of you are not agronomists, let us explain.
The Main Story
Nitrogen makes up about 80% of the air we breathe. The remaining 19% is oxygen and the other 1% is all of the crap we have released into the atmosphere to date. And that includes pollutants from our uncontrolled wildfires – it’s gotta go somewhere. The irony in that is, it is our lungs that are filtering out that 1%. What comes around, goes around…
Nitrogen is also a macronutrient for most plant life. The more nitrogen the plant can assimilate through its roots, the bigger, faster and “more better” it will grow. So, you may be wondering how the nitrogen in the atmosphere finds its way into the plant’s rootzone. The short answer is peas.
Peas are nitrogen fixers. That means they can assimilate nitrogen through their green leafy plant parts and translocate it to nodules that grow on their root system. Much like a well-bred Labrador retriever, they know how to do what they do naturally without any help from the human race. Think of it as the original form of Artificial Intelligence - Plant AI. This being a FARMING BLOG, we will cover “machine learning in the agrarian endeavor” another time.
But here is the rub, peas only fix nitrogen in the soil when the soil is deficient or lacking nitrogen. Per usual, there are a couple of things working against us here. First is that we receive about 45 inches of rain each year, mostly from November through April – and maybe more so in April 2023. Winter rain washes nitrogen out of the soil, which creates a deficiency. Whatever nitrogen you had in your soil after harvest, it is severely depleted when the vines wake up in the spring (or maybe early summer this year, remember vintage 2011?)
The second thing is that once the peas fix a certain level of nitrogen, they stop. Their work is done. But they have not yet fixed enough nitrogen to feed our vines. So that is why we plant grass along with the peas. Grass is a voracious consumer of nitrogen. As the peas are fixing nitrogen, the grass is taking it up just as fast. This creates AND maintains a nitrogen deficiency that the peas are continually trying to alleviate. The result is a very green stand of grass with some peas dispersed throughout. That’s where the nitrogen is now. It’s in the green grass.
Then when the time is right, Ernie climbs aboard the crawler with rototiller in tow and turns the soil. The green leafy plant material is now incorporated into the soil. Think of the soil as the plant’s stomach. Then just like ringing the dinner bell, all manner of invertebrates, worms and other soil borne inhabitants help digest or compost this raw material into nutrients the vines can assimilate through their roots.
Similar to turning grapes into wine, but not exactly the same thing. However, often times wine aromas are described as “earthy”. We prefer the term ethereal, but maybe that’s just Pinot Noir.
What Does This Mean and Why Should I Care?
So, there it is. Fertilization without chemicalization. Does this make the wine better, or more of a natural wine? Is this even important? This is an exercise left to the reader, however we encourage you to get to know how your wine is grown. And more importantly, why it is grown (and harvested) the way it is. That part might just surprise you.
Winemaking: The Continuation of Terroir by Other Means.®
Winemaking: The Continuation of Terroir by Other Means.® is our story. Irreverently referred to as the FLOG (Farming bLOG), it captures our 20+ year journey of making a winegrowing life in Willamette Valley wine country.
An unfinished set of autobiographical stories reflecting the agrarian endeavor, marked by “unfortunate, but not uncommon” experiences and catalogued by vintage, is available to read on Substack. You can read for free and even subscribe. We are living the dream, so you don’t have to.
If you want to see what we think is worth seeing on a more regular basis, follow us on Instagram @AmalieRobert. And its FREE! It's all FREE! We are occupying your mind for FREE!
Planning to enjoy traveling again and exploring the Willamette Valley? Amalie Robert Estate is open year round by appointment for vineyard tours and tastings. Request a tasting appointment with your preferred day and time.
Digital 3-Tier Distribution is here!
We are servicing several markets with digital 3-tier distribution via Liberation Distribution (LibDib). It is our belief that the future of wine distribution will be winery owners building relationships with likeminded trade buyers. LibDib provides us a digital platform to satisfy Federal and State compliance as well as logistics. Digital distribution allows us to better understand your business needs, and how we can add value and revenue opportunities for you. Please email Dena if you are interested in learning more.
The Numbers
This won’t take long. We have not received any significant Degree Days for the month of April, vintage 2023. Well maybe 11.0 Degree Days. While that is not none, on our way to about 2,000 Degree Days, it is right next to it. We recorded a high temperature of 61.0 degrees on April 14th at 4:24 pm, and a low temperature of 30.7 degrees on April 5th at 4:36 am. The monthly average temperature was 44.26 degrees.
Precipitation, however, is another matter altogether. Here at Rancho DeLuge, we have logged 5.35 inches of precipitation from the start of the growing season on April 1st through April 15th. The average April rainfall in the Willamette Valley is 3.6 inches for the ENTIRE month! We are over received.
And we had rain, snow, sleet and hail. Sometimes a mix of three at once, driven horizontally by unabated wind gusts. We were just missing the freezing rain this year. But there is still time, it seems…
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Kindest Regards,
Dena & Ernie