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Problems faced by growers near harvest
When talking to some of the other members, it seems that there are some common issues being faced by the growers such as: raisining/bunching of some of their crop, raccoons, birds, disappearing fruit on rows. If you are experiencing similar or other issues and/or have suggestions on how to deal with these problems/pests, please post a comment to this entry and share your experiences and suggestions. We can hopefully get a good dialog going here and help each other in this critical time.
Comments
Raccoons
After we lost a certain % of our crop in 2009 to raccoons, we put our two German Shepherd Dogs into the vineyard from dusk to dawn, and that stopped the loss. Thus, this year, 2010, we watched every morning to see if the raccoons were back. We did not notice any loss of fruit (and by the way, the raccoons would actually unclip the bird nets and move the net up a bit and then eat the fruit, back in 2009) but finally on 9-27-2010 we decided we had better put the two dogs down there again at night. By the way, we are not harvesting until this Saturday Oct. 9th. Anyway, the dogs will be spending a total of 12 nights in the vineyard. Also, on the first night down there, 9-27-2010, they dispatched a raccoon; we have seen no more evidence of raccoons since then, so I think our method works. As you can tell, we also use bird nets. We don't have a problem with turkeys but the nets keep the other birds away from the fruit. If anyone wants to see what harvesting is alike, we are having a few friends over this Saturday Oct. 9th at 7:30 AM (we should be done in 2 hours and thus no heat), and then will carry the grapes to Captain Vineyards (who make our wine for us), and then back to our Eagle Hill house for a nice lunch with wine. Details are on our blog at:
http://eaglehillcalifornia.blogspot.com/ if you want to see and help!
Peter T. Cacioppo
www.eaglehillgroup.net
Raccoons
Last week we routed three raccoons from our swimming pool at 3:30 a.m. They were combative and surly, no doubt due to the fact that they have eaten some 60-70% of our crop. Out of desperation two nights ago, we put a loud playing radio near the vineyard tuned to KCBS. For the past two nights, no raccons and no more missing grapes. We'll keep you posted, if this is possible deterent. I know it would be for me, if I had to listen to non-stop news for eight+ hours. Happy Harvest!