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The Tattler
"Tales from the Farm"

Bernard Call sent us a story of what he did last year.

A SEASON IN THE VINEYARD

By: Bernard T Call (student of Viticulture/Enology Michigan State University)

This adventure in learning about Michigan wine started in the fall of 2001 at Michigan State University. This student enrolled in Chemistry and Wine Judging classes for the beginning of a two year program. My personal goals were to learn as much as possible about growing vines in the state and to then become the largest planter in the state.

While taking my first classes I learned the importance of volunteering for field work at the research areas. Michigan State University has three main research areas, Southwest Research station (SWIMREC) and Northwest Research Station near Suttons Bay, Traverse City, and Hort Farm at MSU. The program also has grapevine research going on in commercial vineyards around the west side of the state such as in Fenn Valley.

My first trip was to the Southwest Research where the group of workers stayed in a farmhouse or duplexes and every bed was made with Sparty bed covers. Southwest station is near the town of Coloma which is a fruit growing area. The majority of commercial operations near Coloma are Concord or Niagara vineyards which grow for Welchs Juice. The station has a variety of research trials on Vinifera, Hybrids, and Labrusca. For those who don't know Vinifera is a wine grape, mostly European types such as Pinot Noir, Hybrids would be Chambourcin or Foch, and Labrusca would be Concord or Niagara.

My first trip here was in December 2001 for the start of winter pruning. While most people were bathing in the sun in Florida, MSU viticulture students were freezing there fingers off or getting wind burn in the vineyards. I learned quite a lot about pruning on those cold days from the professor and grad students. The most important lesson being to visualize a properly pruned vine and replicating that look while also choosing healthy wood over bad wood! I believe pruning is very important having seen the results of a properly pruned vine in terms of productive shoots and balanced canopy during the growing season.

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