From Vol. 7, No. 3, July 2023
A wildcard when predicting yield this year in the Yakima Valley is “early bloom,” that is plants flowering early after an extremely cold April. It has been most apparent in Centennial, Simcoe and Cluster, but may also negatively impact the yield of other varieties.
Adding to the challenge, Eric Desmarais at CLS Farms explained, is that “split bloom” usually accompanies early bloom. What looks from a distance to be one bine climbing a string may be made up to as many as six. What typically happens, he said, is the more advanced bines grow too tall before the longest day of the year and start flowering. “But the shorter vines stay vegetative and are on a more typical flowering schedule . . . and many times flower at the correct or near correct time.”
Different maturity times make it difficult to find the sweet spot for consistent aroma.
“One of the tricks we do is we increase the nitrogen levels, which helps keep the overall bine vegetative longer, and we delay the basal burn to let as many volunteer bines grab the string as we can,” he said. In late June, some strings in a Centennial field had bines at the wire in full bloom. But at the eight-foot level there might have had three more still growing bines in full vegetative mode.
Early bloom is not unique to America. It affects landrace varieties in Germany as well.
Update: Centennial yield was down 33 percent in Oregon and 18 percent in Washington (off of a below average year in Washington). Some farmers reported getting as few as two bales per acre, compared to an expected seven to eight.