Poisonous Pesticides

When we first started thinking about building a vineyard, we were super serious about keeping it as organic as possible. Maybe going totally organic. It made total sense. I mean I lived in Boulder and loved it, so this granola organic idea is right up my alley. Or at least I initially thought it was a good idea. We thought it'd be great to be certified as "organic" because........and that is the problem. There's no real incentive to go organic besides the feeling you have in your heart of hearts that tells you it is the right thing to do. Like recycling bags, putting rocks in your toilets to decrease water usage, and composting.

When we looked into the explicit benefits of going organic, there really didn't seem to be any big advantage. It was so disappointing. (anybody reading this who thinks I'm dead wrong and knows a multitude of benefits is SO welcomed to comment, please) So we thought, well, we should do it anyway, and we dug into the rules. One of the weird requirements for going organic was that you couldn't use treated wood posts....at all. Well, that means you must want to replace your untreated wood posts every five years.....I so not want to. I have enough work to do thank you very much. There was rules on the type of wire, the hangers, everything....whoo boy.

Then I was comparing yield rates of sprayed vines versus non-sprayed vines. The yield rate is about four times greater for the sprayed vines. Four times the amount of grapes at harvest. Makes sense. No competition with those buggies and fungi. There was that to think about.

Now let's think about the quality of the wine itself. I've done a blind taste test of organic versus non-organic wines, and I just can't tell any difference. The organic wine is not worse, I just couldn't say to you this is so much better. Have you ever had an organic chicken? Yummmmmm, you can really tell the difference between it and the Tyson chicken factory chicken that's for sure. I was expecting that type of quality difference and was sorely disappointed.

Thus, today K Squared Vineyards is a non-organic vineyard along side most of the other vineyards in our area, and in the US for that matter. I believe we responsibly do our part to keep the environmental impact of our use of herbicides and pesticides to a minimum. One can justify anything and it's the only reason I can sleep at night, so please let me have this fantasy.
I really have no solid evidence, but we spray when everybody else sprays and the neighbor kids have not come down with lukemia....yet.

We spray for two things - insects (too numerous to mention them all here except leaf hoppers seem to be the most abundant) and powdery mildew. We use nasty, death perfecting malithion for the bugs, and sulfur for the powdery mildew. The bugs are pretty self explantory, but you may be thinking "what the heck is powdery mildew?" Well I'm glad you asked.

"Powdery mildew is similar to mildew in that it is a cryptogamic illness (excuse me? this just sounds bad) which can cause severe damage to the vine. Powdery mildew is a gray fungus that forms on the leaves and grapes. The grapes eventually split and shrivel." On the canes, which is what is most effected at our vineyard, is basically purple, black blotches located at random spots on the trunks. The funny thing is, is that we live in the desert, so when is mildew ever around? Not very often, but whenever the vineyard gets even a bit of rain, the canes will sprout up some new blotches. My goodness, what do they do in Oregon? They must just have one black cane.

We don't spray every week or even every month, for that matter. Us and the neighbors spray together, we have vineyards that abutt, and we spray about three times a year. So that's not too much is it? See, I told you I can justify anything?

K Squared Vineyards is a non-organic vineyard eeking out big, fat grapes in the high desert. I still feel guilty about the non-organic part. Kind of like how I feel guilty about speeding. I could not do it, but then it's not that big of a deal is it?

Here's to you! Imbibe and enjoy.