burning prunings, smoke in the vineyard

Time for pruning is now running out fast. Already the sap in the vines begins to rise and this makes it easier to tie the canes down onto the fruit wire.

There is just enough time left to replace damaged posts and missing wire clips.
The irrigation has to be checked, too, especially where the wallabies and wombats
blunder over the pipes.

 steer eating prunings
Between 5 and 10 tonnes of vine prunings have to be cut out every year.
We remove diseased prunings from the vineyard. This decreases the number of disease organisms carried over into the new growing season, and so helps to prevent new infections.

Most of the canes we feed to our cattle.
Grape prunings have little nutritional value, but our cattle love to chew on them for hours and have developed a special technique to deal with them. Cabernet sauvignon, which they do not like so much we burn.
ladybird on vine   burning prunings

The first messengers of spring.

Vine moths are a native moth which has adapted to vineyards. The caterpillars feed on vine leaves.

 vine moth  
vine moth The colourful king parrots are common in the vineyard. king parrot
  hare And the hares move back in as soon as we leave a block.
hares   hares
pruned vines spur A classic two-bud spur. The tight winter buds show no indication of the coming life.
calf in the vineyard

On the wrong side of the fence.

vineyard
  And then all is ready for spring!
pruned vines
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to July to September