Cold Climate Research and Extension Needs
Specialty Crop Research Initiative Planning grant to host workshops in Vermont and Minnesota to address needs of the emerging cold-climate industry in the upper Midwest and Northeast.
Cold-climate wine grape cultivars with Vitis riparia parentage, released since the early 1990s, have created new and rapidly expanding small winery enterprises (over 250 wineries, 3,300 acres of grapes, 1300 growers) in New England, Northern New York, and the Upper Midwest (notably Nebraska, Iowa, Minnesota, and Wisconsin), with tremendous positive economic impact on rural areas. Long-term viability of these new businesses and cultivars will depend upon a coordinated research effort to optimize viticultural, enological, and business management practices.
The goal of this project is to bring research and extension scientists and stakeholders from 10 Midwestern and Northeastern states and winery associations together to outline and prioritize research and extension needs, with the long-term goal of enhancing the profitability and sustainability of the emerging cold-climate winery and vineyard businesses in the upper Midwest and Northeast.
Information about the planning workshops is posted at: http://blogs.cce.cornell.edu/grapes/cold-climate-research-extension-needs/
Delivering Timely Information on Vine Cold-Hardiness to NY Grape Growers
Coping with winter injury to buds is a perennial management issue for grape growers in cool climate regions. Information on seasonal changes in vine acclimation, as affected by weather and conditions, is valuable to growers in adjusting their management to cope with bud injury. The Department of Horticultural Sciences at Geneva and the Hudson Valley Laboratory have invested in new controlled freezing equipment that will enable us to expand our use of Differential Thermal Analysis (DTA) to capture low temperature exotherms (LTEs) to monitor seasonal changes in bud hardiness. We will use this tool to provide growers with current information about bud hardiness and winter injury.
Please visit the Weather Information Page for more Cold Hardiness information.