The buds are out, the bugs are out.

Just one week after planting the new Redstone Vineyard and many of the buds are already pushing. The weather has been really favorable to new growth, warm days and plenty of rain, but, these conditions are not exclusively beneficial for plants. They also triggered an eruption of insect life that was not present last week, most notably, the first Cicadas of what has been reported to be a once in a lifetime emergence.

Pictured above, a Cicada that found a resting place on one of our new vines after dawning its adult form. Cicadas are beautiful and I personally love the almost deafening noise they are able to produce in large numbers, but we are slightly worried as they have been known to damage young grapes by laying eggs inside the woody stem. There is nothing to be done because there are not really any ways to prevent this without putting insect netting over the whole vineyard, which if not impossible is certainly impractical.

Another insect also made its debut in the vineyard this week. I spotted what are most likely Armyworms in our more established Vineyard. They are known to have a healthy appetite for grape leaves and if given the chance will help themselves to a tremendous amount of foliage. I went ahead and sprayed the vines with Kaolin Clay in order to make the leaves less appealing. The clay is totally natural and will not harm any insects but the tiny clay particles are quite annoying for the bugs to chew through, think if it like bread that has been baked with a cup of sand added to the dough. Not very nice. It’s important to keep an eye on these pests and we will see how they persist.

But alas, there are larger threats on the horizon. Most of this past weekend was spent installing a high voltage electric fence to keep deer out of the Redstone Vineyard. Deer love tender grape shoots and group of them can easily consume all our young vines in a day or less. Hopefully one good shock will send them looking elsewhere. P.s the shock of the fence is very starting but not dangerous. I accidentally tried it out and can now confirm that it’s working just fine. We are extremely grateful for a small grant that we received to help cover the cost of the fence awarded to us by the Missouri Coalition for the Environment’s Known and Grown initiative. They provided grants of $1000 and under to help small farmers with projects like ours. Learn more here https://moenvironment.org/blog/knownandgrownstl/