Guest essay by Eric Worrall
h/t Breitbart – A vineyard farmer in New York blames extreme winters caused by global warming for killing his vines.
Great Lakes Vineyard Confronts Climate Change
By ANGELICA A. MORRISON • NOV 28, 2017
Just a few miles from Lake Erie, farmer Mike Jordan takes me on a walk through his vineyard. On a work utility vehicle we move through the rows of vines bursting with purple and high yellow grapes.
…
Recent years have been some of the warmest globally. And Jordan remembers well the extreme weather that hit his farm.
“We’ve had a very mild winter [in 2016] so almost everything survived,” he said. “But prior to that, the winter of 2014 to 2015, were extremely cold temperatures that I’ve never seen before.
“And it killed a lot of vineyards that in the past we’ve had success with. We’ve done a lot of replanting and we try to choose varieties that can survive the winter.”
…
Climate trends also have caused farmers to change the types of grapes they grow.
Jordan says he phased out the Syrah variety.
“What appeared attractive to grow years ago, now with more severe winters and more extremes, we’ve had to rethink what we’re planting,” he said.
…
Read more: http://radio.wosu.org/post/great-lakes-vineyard-confronts-climate-change-0#stream/0
Jordan mentions mild periods in winter which prevent Lake Erie from freezing over also cause problems.
My question – if global warming causes colder winters, will global cooling when it eventually occurs cause milder winters?
Accepting that both global warming and global cooling would cause colder winters requires belief that we currently live in a magic climate optimum, that any change will result in more severe winters. Possible but very unlikely.
Believing global cooling would lead to milder winters is absurd – the last ice age was clearly not the product of milder winters.
So colder winters are clearly not the product of global warming. Either colder winters are the product of random local climate variations, a very real possibility, or something other than global warming is occurring.
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Can’t see the difference from when the colder winters killed off those vineyards the Romans planted in Yorkshire, in the north of England. What caused the … er, global warming then?
mathematically weather is not a coin toss. it does not follow the “normal” distribution as we see in games of chance. rather it is a power series distribution where “rare” events are much more likely than what we expect normally.
this has led a generation of statistically challenged climate scientist astray as they attribute to “climate change” what is in point of fact simply due to faulty math.
If this farmer’s vines are dying then he has chosen the wrong varieties for his vineyard’s growing zone. Vines are rated for growing zones and if the vines are incompatible they will die. It was pointed out by The Expulsive (see above) that mounding (or some other protective cover) can help vines survive, but there are limits to this. The answer is a cold weather variety, but that can come with a sacrifice in wine quality.
In my personal experience I found it was easier to just plant vines that are compatible with the zone. Otherwise you have to replant every so often and then wait three years for the vines to reliably produce.
If the farmer would like to buy the book ‘times of feast,times of famine’ by e Roy Laurie he would see the thousand years worth of records on vineyards the author painstakingly collected.
They include severe cold severe heat severe drought severe rain and every condition in between. There is no such thing as normal or average
Tonyb
On average… things are normal… except when they’re not.
It is customary if you grow things for a living that the weather is never optimal. It is either too cold, too hot, too wet, too dry or far too average to get the bets crop possible. Most farmers are pretty smart though about not blaming heat for it being too cold or rain for it being too dry. Maybe growing wine in New York is a special case.
Andy, stop with the logic. We are moving back into the seasonal weather conditions that caused the “experts” to predict the coming Ice Age back in the 70’s. They are currently caught in a shift of dialogue. By 2020, after roughly 3 years of blizzard conditions in the upper Midwest and Northeast with sub zero ambient temperatures and wind chills to make a fully grown Viking nervous, the warming terminology will have dissipated completely and the narrative will have shifted. Seems like they have learned past lessons well and will finally settle into “climate change” as the go to nomenclature with complete disregard for the scientific evidence that the climate has always been in a state of fluctuation. Oh no! this time it is all your fault. So hunker down, pass the firewood and pay up.
Mike Mann will flip his hockey stick and proclaim that CO2 cools the planet. 😉
And those problems would be……..? He can’t walk, or drive a snowmobile, to Canada without going through a customs post, perhaps? Both ways!!
So if it’s colder, he has problems, and if it’s warmer, he has problems. He sounds as if he might have problems if it stayed the same. Poor guy.
It’s the new liberalized and unreformed insanity defense.
So… I guess we could blame a very hot summer’s day on global cooling?….
A New Yorker complaining about winter? In upstate? Knock me over with a feather.
Why do you think they call it Climate Change now? Global Warming was too restrictive – it actually led one to expect warming. Climate Change can cover everything, warmer, cooler, drier, wetter, and anything in between. So they have an all purpose descriptive, available for use no matter what the weather does.
Long live Climate Change! We will study it. Please send money!
Meanwhile in Europe, severe late frosts in 2017 (together with the same in Australia and South America) have resulted in the lowest wine production in 50 years:
http://www.bbc.com/news/business-41728536
What you would expect of course in a record warm year.
How much ice will it take to show the general public they are being lied to?
It’s the Jerry Brown insanity defense.
Ironic for a grape grower to drink the KoolAid.
+10
Already made comments like this before, but it really doesn’t matter how much they exaggerate global temperatures because regional temperatures/weather will eventually prove them to be fake. The USA temperatures were very global like before recent adjustments for them both. Western Europe doesn’t magically cool while global temperatures are warm record breaking. Cold winters generally occur for most populated regions because the jet stream becomes meridional instead of the usual zonal and that is generally caused by weaker solar activity, nothing to do with rising CO2 levels.
Increasing milder winters and warmer summers indicate a warming planet.
Increasing colder winters and cooler summers indicate a cooling planet.
There is no in-between and climate change causes X just based on religious mind set myth trying to support the agenda.
Terrific! Another “grape grower” growing grapes in areas while being entirely clueless about that region’s grape growing history.
Since Europeans arrived on these shores they have been trying to plant European wine varieties.
Vineyards that planted vitis vinifera grapevines from France, Italy, Spain, Germany quickly discovered that vitis vinifera grapevines did not like:
• Severe winters and subzero Fahrenheit temperatures, (below -17.8℃),
• Late frosts
• Early frosts,
• Heavy clay soils,
• Warm wet winters,
• Cold wet winters, etc.
http://pss.uvm.edu/homefruit/hfgccgrapes.pdf
Wet winters and heavy clay soils foster downy mildew and powdery mildew (Phytophthora); both killers of grape vines if untreated.
The trouble is that those vitis vinifera roots sitting winter dormant in heavy clay stagnant soils, causes those grapes to succumb to Phytophthora very quickly
Western New York soils tend towards heavy clays.
Nor do vitis vinifera vines enjoy subzero Fahrenheit temperatures, (below -17.8℃); as the vines are killed by extended below zero exposures.
http://planthardiness.ars.usda.gov/PHZMWeb/Images/72DPI/ny.jpg
That warmer portion of New York alongside Lake Erie is Zone 6a -15°F -23.3°C average annual minimum winter temperature.
Once Lake Erie freezes, an Arctic blast can bring colder temperatures. Just another penalty for believing averages are absolutes.
An early possible cross between the Native American Vitis labrusca and the European Vitis vinifera vines is the Catawba grape. Which became quite popular during the mid 1800s.
While the Catawba inherits some of the parent’s cold resistance, it is still susceptible to the phytophthora mildews; causing entire vineyards to be uprooted and destroyed.
As Welch’s grape juices demonstrates so well, New England and New York are quite suitable for growing the native vitis labrusca grape; one well known variety is the Concord grape.
Grape growers grow vitis vinifera and vitis vinifera/labrusca hybrids at their own risk.
Not surprisingly, the last forty years have seen a huge influx of ‘gentlemen farmers’, retiring early to grow grapes for wines.
Also unsurprisingly, NASA and NOAA have injected their climate change religious advocacy into the world of growing wine grapes.
Shiraz is one of the less cold hardy vinifera grape varieties. I would consider it to be marginal in even the warmest parts of upstate NY. The primary areas for growing vinifera is Seneca Lake and Cayuga lakes as they never or rarely freeze. Lake Erie is a bad place to grow vinifera. I would consider that growing Shiraz to be a hobby.
There are some grape varieties developed by the university of Minnesota that are cold hardy to -30 to -40 degrees C. They would grow well, and have similar flavor characteristics to European grapes. Marquette, Frontenac and LaCrescent are such varieties and they would grow well there. Traditional labrusca grapes would grow well as well. The flavors of the labrusca may not be to the liking of Europeans, but for the American market they sell very well.
The other reason not to grow Shiraz is you are competing with the rest of the world. It is better to grow something unique and well suited to a region, and not having to compete with the French/ California/ Australia wine lake that occurs in years of high production of Vitis vinifera grapes.
Genetic engineering might be the way to get rid of what is politely called the “foxy” flavor of labrusca grape wine.
James:
You are correct.
Syrah/Shiraz is a Mediterranean vitis vinifera variety. As a vitis vinifera variety Shiraz is highly susceptible to phytophthora and cold weather.
The trouble with New York, Northern Pennsylvania and New England is that the ground freezes solid to some depth.
Damage by freezing or damage by phytophthora in clay soils is deadly to vitis vinifera.
Hunter Valley Shiraz. ! 🙂 🙂
Tonight, I finish the second half of a Coonawarra (South Australian) Shiraz. 🙂
Thanks for the compliment TRM, but it isn’t as deserved as you make it seem.
I have several minor advantages:
1) I’ve planted and raised grapes, fruit trees, berries, nuts and vegetables since childhood. In my early twenties, I added the affliction of raising orchids to that menagerie.
2) On my current property I have peaches, grapes, plums, cherries, blueberries, oaks and hickory nuts. I haven’t replaced my raspberries the last few years, but I intend to fix that void soon.
In our sunroom, I raise my orchids with several Mediterranean type fig trees and assorted other plants including tomatoes and peppers.
The grapes currently on our property are my recent attempt to grow muscadines, which are doing surprisingly well; though I dread a -0°F spell every winter. I had several vitis vinifera/labrusca hybrids, but they all succumbed to that winter root disease.
3) One business trip to California from Washington DC, I got upgraded to first class by the airline. My seat partner turned out to be a grape expert from California who was flown to Virginia to “advise” several large Virginia Grape growers.
I had already lost several vinifera/labrusca hybrids to winter root rots, by then; so the expert got to share some of his stresses telling pseudo experts why their vines were dying or failing to flourish.
In the process of our flight, I learned a lot without having to ask many questions; a very rare treat!
4) My muscadines are planted in a trench where I removed a foot of clay, broke up another foot of clay and rototilled in sand, gravel, perlite and humus. After fifteen years, they are still alive; but then, muscadines are native grapes.
I do plan to replant some Concords’ and Niagaras’ grapes; but I have pretty well given up on vinifera hybrids.
5) I learned early on, to lean heavily on local experts. Get acquainted with the local cooperative extension services! Even farmers depend upon the local cooperative extension services.
There are several state extension services well worth checking the latest research. Pennsylvania’s is a great start. Virginia’s is good as are Illinois and Minnesota.
There are few joys/flavors equal to tree/vine/plant ripened fruit!
Virtually none of the fruit in grocery stores are tree ripened. Even local farmers must pick early, keep cold until there is a decent market then ripen with ethylene.
Many of the peaches, plums, raspberries, figs and grapes do not travel well when fully ripe. Apples can take more bumping around, but even apples tend not to all ripen equally. Commercial growers don’t want to revisit trees, so all apples are picked.
Perhaps, I should include the few pawpaw trees on my property? A cherimoya relative, they bruise as easily as the most delicate white peaches.
Good luck with your orchard TRM!
ATheoK, I want you for my orchardist!!! Darn nice workup on what should be grown where.
Boy that orchardist had better hope David Dilly is wrong or 2019-40 will do him in.
Maybe we’ll all be drinking Haskap Wine as those berries grow way up in climate zone 2.
I commented on this here: https://wp.me/p8hgeb-41.