Avoiding crop damage this winter

After a bitterly cold winter last year, Niagara grape growers are already working to avoid millions of dollars of potential damage this season. A Brock University program is helping to take some of the guess work out of how and when growers need to protect their crops.

It only takes one cold weather snap to cause serious crop damage.

Matthew Speck, Henry of Pelham winery: “Those buds are actually alive and they need to get through the cold winter months alive for there to be a crop next year.”

Henry of Pelham co-owner Matthew Speck says they used to have to guess when to run their wind machines, which help raise the temperature in the vineyard: “You’d guess that if you think it’s minus 20 you err on the side of caution and probably run at minus 16 so we would basically end up running our wind machines much more often than we needed.”

It can be an expensive estimate. Speck’s 12 wind machines run at about 40 to 50 dollars per hour each.

Speck: “When we’re in the lab we basically dissect the bud off and that’s the bud that we’re going to be testing for freeze intolerance.”

A Brock University program that takes vine samples during the colder months is helping growers eliminate that guesswork.

Senior viticulture scientist Jim Willwerth says a vines’ tolerance to cold changes throughout the season. Within 24 hours of testing samples in their lab, researchers are able to notify growers when their crops are in danger through an online site called “vine alert.”

Jim Willwerth: “We’ve been able to help save the industry from catastrophic losses that we had in 2003 and a lot of it has to do with the type of technology and the tools these growers have.”

The university estimates vine alert helped growers save as much as 2.3 million dollars in fuel costs alone last year.

There are social and environmental benefits to reducing running times as well. While it’s too windy to turn them on today, when operating each one of these machines is as noisy as a helicopter.

Brock is hoping to soon expand vine alert to other parts of the country.