News ways to cope with global warming
In 2013, the severe hailstorms in France and winter freeze nearly destroyed all of the Merlot vineyards and 50% of the frost resistant grapes like Riesling. What does this mean? Well, in some instances, wineries will have to completely replant and wait up to 7 years to have their vineyards produce grapes! Replanting comes with many restricitions such as limited chemical usage as well as many complex irrigation laws. If the weather dips only for short periods, vineyard managers have the opportunity to save their grapes and here some actions vineyards are taking to cope with extreme weather patterns.
Many vineyards use wind machines. Although the machines look like wind mills, they are not used for alternative energy purposes. There are several variations of wind machines for vineyards but the overall concept is the same. Cold air collects on the ground and in valleys and when nighttime temperatures are low enough, it will freeze grapes. This is bad! The fans blow warmer air from above down into the vineyards to keep frost from forming.
Hail cannons have actually been used since the 19th century. It is a cannon that blasts a shock wave upwards into clouds during an approaching storm. The shock wave from the cannon is so powerful that it will break up the creation of hail stones before they drop out of the sky. Hail is devastating to all types of agriculture because it often happens in the spring when plants have tiny delicate buds. Many french wine makers have invested in these hails since 2013 hailstorms.
An explosive charge of acetylene gas and air is fired through this tower, which makes a loud boom followed by the annoying reverberating whistling sound of a 200 mph shockwave. The thinking is that the shockwave will disrupt the hailstones as they’re forming.
I’ve seen some video footage of these hail cannons and, man, they are really loud, and not only that, they’re fired repeatedly every minute or so as a storm is passing. As you might imagine, if you live next door to someone using a hail cannon, you’re going to hate it, because it sounds like artillery fire.
The effectiveness of these hail cannons is pretty inconclusive. Some people swear by them, while others point out that thunder also creates loud booms and shockwaves, but it often hails in the middle of a thunderstorm. Then there’s another type of cannon that shoots silver iodide into the air, a process known as ground-based “cloud seeding” (cloud seeding can also be performed from an airplane). Silver iodide lowers the temperature in clouds and creates ice crystals, which can then fall in the softer forms of snow or slush rather than hail.
For many of the wealthy vineyards, they hire helicopters to hoover over the young vines for frost prevention during important harvesting month. Below is a picture of the most famous vineyard in France called Petrus. They hire prival helicopters for frost prevention. Along the sides of the vineyard, the owner also planted many rose bushes. When I asked him about the plant, he explained that how well the rose bush look will give the viners an indication of the new diseases. Apparently it's very hard to detect the disease with out sarafrice the strctures of the vines.
Petrus
