A voice of Reason in these dark times...

 

Huzzah! for Stuart Smith of Smith-Madrone Winery!

I just got through reading his letter to the editors of the Santa Rosa Press-Democrat, somewhat taking them to task for the nonsensical video of Mike Benziger on the PD site touting his Biodynamic philosophy. I've clipped the letter he wrote here, as well as provide the link for the PD letters for Fri April 17th...

The best lines have to be...

"...People today make all sorts of assertions with little or no connection to the truth, and biodynamics is no different. Show me the scientific experiments that prove biodynamic soils and vines are healthier and biodynamic wines are better.
... in my opinion, biodynamics is a hoax and deserves the same level of respect we give to witchcraft. On Earth Day or another day, animal sacrifices (a biodynamic farming practice) should not be an acceptable practice of modern day agriculture or our society."

Damn!

That's poetry. And my heart is warmed that people out there are starting to take notice of this mis-represented farming practice which wants everyone to think it naught but "peasant agriculture".......

A BIG thanks to Mr.Smith for his letter of reason!

A good show (dinner not included)...

I found this on the web while looking up a few points for this post:

"You do not 'believe' in science. Science is not a BELIEF SYSTEM. Science is a method of inquiry. If you do not know what deduction and induction are you need to LOOK THEM UP. Don't try to burn Galileo, you villianous Heathen!"
         - Angry Pontiff

All the same, put this on your calendar:
Friday April 24th, 7 PM @ the Jackson Theater, 4400 Day School Place, Santa Rosa...keep critical thinking points like that above in mind while attending...

Why?

Because this location is hosting an evening of Biodynamic Q&A put to a trio of proponents [link]: Alan York (BD consultant), Paul Dolan (winegrower), and Jeremy Fox (chef @ Ubuntu...uhhhm, so how's he fit into this exactly?). Tickets are $20 in advance/ $25 at the door, and the proceeds go to the Sonoma Co. Wine Library, which is housed at the public library in Healdsburg. This is the type of theater which is most amusing, and my suggestion to you all is to read up on a bit of the BioD nonsense and then ask the hard questions of those assembled on stage, to wit: "exactly what forces are those that we are 'concentrating' by using these BioD preparations?"...

After all, these are the 'experts' - hell, York charges MONEY for those types of answers everyday! - and if they don't have clear answers to these questions, or if they conflict with each other, then we can draw one of three conclusions~

1. they don't have a clue...
2. they know, but don't want us to know...
3. there is no answer because there really aren't any forces being concentrated, and to say such would expose the farce that biodynamics is.

 Personally, after about a decade of trying to fathom what-the-Hell BioD actually is doing in the vineyard by talking with growers & proponents, I believe the answer is a combination of 1 & 3. You can witness this firsthand by viewing the video below of Steve Beckmen of Santa Barbara "explaining" what they do at his vineyard...and "why"... 

This last part is the most telling, due to his rambling answers and lack of anything concrete. How someone can produce a video where the "expert" being talked to can stumble when trying to relate what "forces" are being "excluded" or "enhanced" is beyond me. Why anyone would then post that video w/o cleaning it up first to make sure it made sense is even further beyond me (c'mon! you've got all the time on your hands to make it as authoritative as possible, and ensure it flows smoothly...why not do a couple of takes and get it right?).

A few high points of the video are: 

• Steve telling us about how his magic plywood box (lined with peat) keeps out unwanted "energies" from his BioD concoctions (sadly, those "energies" remain unnamed)...
• relating the "art" of dynamization, and his confession that although hand stirring is best, he uses a machine to do the job so he doesn't have to hire 8 people to get the same job done...
• that they CAN'T get the job done by following the biodynamic calendar, because you only have 2 days out of every 8 where the system allows for the work you need to do to actually get done - so they wrap the work onto other "similar" types of days ...
  
• ...and many more!

And look here, you can actually see the potent cosmic-type energies escaping the box when it's opened!

http://www.sbwinemakers.com/Beckmen-interview.php

Well, we're back to the beginning again, just like the snake eating its own tail, no closer to the real answers about what this system is really trying to do, or better yet "how it gets those things done". And why when people ignore the doctrines of that system it continues to deliver the wanted results. As I've said before - if you can delete or ignore certain parts of the system, did they really contribute to the overall results in the first place? 

Did any of it ever contribute to the results??

Hmm. Reminds me of a post from back in March '06 where a writer had published all sorts of nonsense re BioD and their silly calendars (don't forget to plant your potatoes this coming Monday after Easter...unless you're Greek Orthodox, when the best day will be the Monday following THEIR Easter Sunday...).

I have an experiment I tried a few years ago, but it might be time to try it again...providing it doesn't implode and cause a black hole to form! [See the link for details!]

March...a time for vigilance

Well, I guess now there's no arguing that Spring is here.

With daytime temps hitting the mid 70's, and lows in the high 30's, the trees and flowers have started blooming across the countryside. The air is thick with the smell of all the flowers, and even those dormant old vines are starting to look as if they may bust forth from their winter sleep very soon. Insects have reawakened, and have begun to buzz about the various nectar rich flowers.

Now I may seem a bit alarmist, but....this IS the time of year that we've seen the first attempted incursions of some nasty pests into our area, and the glassy-winged sharpshooter (GWSS) is the primary concern. The "normal" route of attack is for the pesky buggers to try to hitch a ride on ornamental shrub shipments which are coming up from southern California to various nursery's here in the north bay. These days we also have to be vigilant for the light brown apple moth, as well as the transporting of the grapevine mealybug from place to place.

As happy as I may be to be out of Ol' Man Winters' grasp, I would've preferred to have a few days of hard frost to make my life easier as far as pest management is concerned. And although we did have some cold weather -as well as a little more snow on the ridges than usual- it never really seemed to get that cold, or cold-enough to put an icy foot on the pests' little necks....
Even though an occasional late March frost (or Alaskan cold front) isn't out of the question, it's hard to envision one happening when the daytime temps are as high as they are now. If we'd had more of a penetrating frost during the winter, then maybe there would be a few more damaged vines, but less pressure for farmers to spray very heavily.
The slight increase in the number of damaged vines from winter frost is something I'd be willing to sacrifice every once in a while to help control the little SOB's, but that's due to the fact that I advocate pruning late and can compensate for some damaged buds here and there. Mind you, I'm not wishing there was an ice storm like we sometimes see damaging Florida's citrus crops, or the current winter storms we see across most of the rest of the country right now...just a little deeper cold snap back in late December or early January.

There's been more rainfall this year but we're still about 10" short of where we should be (I'm showing 28.5" so far since July of last year). That usually isn't a problem since March will dump ~7" of rain on average, and April and May both contribute ~2" each to the season's total....but the cold weather is pretty much a memory for this season.

See these posts for more information on the pest threats we collectively face!
2007/03/more-bad-news
2007/02/napa-sharpshooter-alert
2005/04/vigilantes-wanted
2005/04/update-on-sharpshooter-vigilante-post

2007/06/Vine mealybug threat

And here are the IPM websites for each of the pests:
GWSS - sharpshooters
Light Brown Apple Moth
Grapevine Mealybug