THE never-ending machine pruning task will be completed this week, which is great.
The hand pruning clean-up will get underway soon. Plenty of other jobs remain. These longer days mean spring and budburst is coming soon.
We have only had small amounts of rain over recent weeks so an irrigation may not be far away. It’s forecast to be a cool and wet spring again which will bring its share of frosty and fungal challenges.
Let’s get it out there, I’m a climate change sceptic and happy to be convinced otherwise. I’m all for increasing carbon in our soils and being careful with what we do but having our so-called leaders rabbiting on about all things environment instead of fostering the importance of Australia being more self-sufficient is not cutting it.
It’s unprecedented times in the wine industry, especially for the wineries exposed to the export market into China, which is the majority of them.
The who flung dung has literally hit the fan and the wineries simply don’t want a lot of what growers will grow this coming season.
Consumers in China want our red wine but the increased tariffs have made it uneconomical.
I’ve heard of one report where a consignment of seven containers of bottled wine are on the docks in China but can’t get any further and will have to be shipped all the way back to Australia.
Grapevines are not an annual crop and can’t be just turned off for a couple of years. Growers will need support through the process of changing to other varieties or the movement out of the industry.
