From the Fields - Pat Wirz

By Pat Wirz, San Benito County farmer and rancher

Our cattle are on dry feed, so the main thing we are doing is supplement feeding because the cows need a little extra because everything is a little dry. I’m feeding grain hay and a forage mix of barley, oats and beardless wheat. In addition, we are feeding molasses protein. I reduced my cow herd because I lost a big piece of pasture.

Winegrape varieties are starting to go through veraison. The black, red and white varieties are going from green, hard berries to soft and translucent. We expect harvest to begin in early October. Traditionally, we start harvesting Oct. 1.

We are seeing cooler temperatures, but we had a hot July with a lot of days of more than 100 degrees. We had a bit of sunburn in the winegrapes and walnuts. Our main problem is rodent pressure has been extremely heavy this year. The little buggers are getting up in the vines and chewing on the wood. In certain spots, they chewed the stems, causing bunches to drop. This is going to affect yields slightly, but what I am concerned about is the effect this will have on the wood. We won’t know what effect they had on the wood until the leaves fall off and we start pruning in mid-November to December.

Regarding wildfires, we had one fire a month ago a few miles away. A person was welding, and the spark got away and caused a fire that burned about 1,500 acres. So far, we’ve been lucky. We are getting into the peak of the fire season in August, September and early October until we get some rain. We know researchers are studying the markers of smoke taint on different winegrape varieties. Whether you’re a grape grower or winemaker, this is a big issue for the entire winegrape industry. We are still learning what the markers are and what varieties are affected and what level smoke exposure causes this.