I haven't listed all of the 2022 wines. I should have planted 7 rows of Itasca. It makes a beautiful wine that smells like honey, honeysuckle, fothergilla blossoms. The 2022 version actually required the addition of acid. The Foch is sacrificial and is dying anyway. I didn't get the netting on the Frontenac in time to prevent complete critter loss. Traminette is not our favorite, I didn't bother harvesting. Jury is out on Frontenac gris - I made the wine but it is very unremarkable. La Crescent is a slight improvement on the Frontenac.
The grape with the greatest potential (in terms of yield and taste) is still the Vidal. Unfortunately we just couldn't get the Vidal to the finish line. It ripens unevenly. And it sustained significant leave discoloration and leave drop before the grapes ripened. Last year spraying the grapes took an hour or more, and I still never got good coverage. I was convinced the Vidal was diseased. Sure, it could have been nutrient stress or water stress, but for this post, let's focus on the possibility that disease slowed the ripening, and the sprayer trouble is the root cause.
I went out today for the first spray of the year, and I had no mist at all. It was time to dig into this problem and fix it once and for all. This sprayer has been trouble from the beginning. Bolts and nuts falling off, hoses coming loose, shoulder straps wearing out. The troubleshooting of the most recent problem started proximally and worked distally. The tank looked fine. The hose was clear. The nozzle was the problem. When I got it off I found the issue.
No air flowed through that nozzle. I picked at it and pulled out this:
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| Silicone caulk in the tank. |
