After pulling leaves over the weekend, I gave the vines a good 8 hrs of water. Mostly because (a) there may be excessive shatter going on, and (b) some of that brown/yellow coloring makes me think a bit more water is in order. Despite the, hmm, vigor.
It's that time of year - we had our second annual leaf pulling party, friends joined us for an hour's worth of yanking leaves out of the fruit zone, and pinching off secondary shoots. In the end you get big piles of leaves and secondary shoots on the vineyard floor - like this.
We're letting the vines go a little out of control compared to last year; this may come back to bite us as post-leaf pulling party there was still a long way to go (mind you, our friends got a LOT of it done). Little bits here and there throughout the next month should pull us ahead.
This is about the time of year paranoia sets in. I start to see things that are not right and think that the entire vineyard is destined to die off. 
This time, it's browning on the edge of the leaves. I noticed similar leaf oddities last year, but yellow rather than brown. And this is definitely more an issue far from the veins. Also, strangely enough, the phenomenon is scattered through the vineyard (3 vines on row 7, 1 on row 4, 1 row 3). I'll do the research over the next few days.
I've been heading out in the mornings trying to train the vines to be sure they grow into their trellis system (instead of trailing down on the ground). Lots of juggling, weaving, and being very careful not to break the vines themselves.
This morning I got through the top 3 rows - and the top 2 are hardly growing at all. Most are in bloom (the shot here). Top row got some foliar nutrients, the rest just 1.5% mix of Stylet Oil. Good news is that the vines seem really healthy - row 7 took a whole tank full of water/Stylet Oil mixture.
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