The Finger Lakes Get Ready For -10 F 5 to 8 days o

[Don Giovanni]

The Finger Lakes Get Ready For -10 F 5 to 8 days of disaster

ROCHESTER FREEZES OVER NEXT WEEK

Written By: Scott Hetsko

Remember January 2004? That year we had a bitter cold snap with over a week's worth of below zero temperatures in the morning and several afternoons where the mercury didn't reach 10 degrees! I bring up this memory to prepare you for later next week. There will likely be a 5-8 day period beginning next Wednesday where afternoon highs will struggle to reach 10 degrees yet again.

Many towns away from moderating influences of Lake Ontario will watch the air dip well below zero some mornings. Huge Arctic high pressure will build in which will means lake snows only hug the shoreline late next week. Several reinforcing shots of polar air will visit into late January. OLD MAN WINTER RULES...GET READY FOR IT!

This could be a replay of when I lost 10,000 vines...ouch...

[eat2much]

This could be the worst thing to come from Canada since Celine Dion!

[Chris Amirault]

The Finger Lakes Get Ready For -10 F 5 to 8 days of disaster

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This could be a replay of when I lost 10,000 vines...ouch...

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John, what, if anything, can you do to prepare for this?

[Don Giovanni]

The Finger Lakes Get Ready For -10 F 5 to 8 days of disaster

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This could be a replay of when I lost 10,000 vines...ouch...

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John, what, if anything, can you do to prepare for this?

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Chris,

Burn big hay bails you can get a them boost the temps and air flow from this the hills will be a glow with the fire to prevent damage...next we have a snow cover of 8' so the therm's will be nice 32 F coming off the ground...last my site the Seneca lake will stay 39.5 F in the winter so the wind if she will could help me by sending moderating temps to help us out...we already hilled up with straw and dirt so we sit looking good compared to the rest of the lot...some have wind mills ready...no talk of any helicopters yet they did that in the spring and it worked...

thanks everyone I will up-date when I can...

[Don Giovanni]

Well we are off to a Mother Nature event the 2009 Alberta Clipper last week the 14 th and the 15 th were the coldest...Seneca lake the south east side got down to - 5 in the Banana Belt and as cold as - 10 in Geneva so you have the tail of two vineyards...the Banana Belt with snow cover that helped and the fact we went into the cold spell real slow also helped...that said this is not another 2004 by far...in 2004 we were at 60 F one day and the next - 15 F so we are talking about damage unlike 2004...

The Hybrids are fine their cold tolerance is - 10 to - 15 F and they did ok , but spring will be the true tale...unless you go out and collect buds and test them...

The Vinifera 20 to 30 % loss per vine ... min at the best sites...up north - 10 F well we will hope for the best and look for the worst...best guess is damage of 50% to the vines, unless they started to prune early then you don't have much vine to lose, your loss could be greater...

We gathered 100 buds and let them set at room temp for 48 hours and then cut with a razorblade the buds, looking for damage first with the primary bud, as they have three...a primary, secondary and a almost useless tertiary bud...at our sites on the East side of Seneca Lake we found that we had native vine damage none...hybrid vines less than 10 % so that's nothing...the cold sensitive vinifera in the hottest sites in the Banana belt 20% bud loss , so if you did not prune early like us then you will just leave more buds per cane than if it was a normal winter, thus nature naturally pruned your vines...this is why I prune late winter after all the danger is gone...

Since we are the warmest lake and the deepest our micro climate helped us out...as for the colder lakes...OUCH ... I feel , but have not heard they got clobbered in relation to our damage...