Coffee Shop Blog
A Checklist to Reduce Spray Drift
What I learned in The New Yorker, in an article titled "The Checklist" written by Atul Gawande, and published on December 10, 2007, was that a simple and effective technique for reducing human error is the checklist. Gawande later wrote an entire book on the subject...
Measuring the Effectiveness of Grape Pest Management Outreach in Lodi
The Lodi Winegrape Commission and the University of California Cooperative Extension (UCCE) have something very important in common. We share the goal of helping communicate the best agricultural research and effective practices to farmers. In late 2014 the Commission...
Considerations for Dry Farming Wine Grapes
Some wine grape growers prefer to dry farm wine grapes, while others have no choice because either they have no water for irrigation or no means to apply water during the growing season. Of course, dry farming is as old as grapevine cultivation and it remains a...
Charlie Starr – Nutrient Management Profile
Nutrient Management planning Charlie Starr grew up around vineyards; today, together with his father and father-in-law, the family oversees around 100 acres of vines in Acampo, California. Since the 1960s, the families have been expanding vineyard acreage, with the...
Water Management – Part III
Introduction Thank you for reading Part III of this three-part series on water management. In Part I we discussed the importance of having a written water management plan, the advantages of Regulated Deficit Irrigation (RDI), monitoring water quality and soil...
Water Management — Part II
Introduction Thank you for reading Part II of this three-part series on water management. In Part I we discussed the importance of having a written water management plan, the advantages of Regulated Deficit Irrigation (RDI), monitoring water quality and soil...
In the Vineyard with Paul Verdegaal – Looking Back at 2014
The 2014 season was a challenging and difficult year that ended well. Growers and winemakers deserve a tip of the hat. There were however some scattered misfortunes. The harvest wrapped up in the second week of October for most, although a few blocks were harvested...
Water Management — Part I
Introduction Describing the issue of water in California, Mark Twain once intoned, “whiskey’s fer drinkin’, water’s fer fightin’.” Winegrapes use less water than most crops, so we do a little less fighting than some, but we still need to manage our most precious...
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