HENDERSON CO., KY (WFIE) -
Our dry, hot weather has been brutal to most crops, but grapes have been thriving and a local winery is reporting an early harvest.
Jamie Like co-owns Ruby Moon Winery in Henderson. She says grapes like dry, hot weather and cool nights.
"We've had a combination of that over the last several days. Obviously we've had a lot of hot weather and not necessarily cool nights, but they're very drought resilient," Like said.
There are 1500 vines and eight different varieties of grapes at Ruby Moon.
Like says all grapes react differently to the weather, but most are very tolerant.
"It's a catch 22. If we have a lot of rain, then they're more susceptible to disease so they're doing pretty well considering," Like said.
She says the combination of weather we've had since winter has their harvest coming extremely early.
"In this area, harvest season comes in mid-August through late September and for us it's usually a staggered harvest since we grow a variety of grapes," Like said. "This year with our first harvest maybe this Saturday. We're about a month ahead of schedule so it's very unusual. But generally speaking in this area, around march we do a really heavy pruning of all the vines and then they grow vigorously. These leaves, this canopy grow throughout the summer and then harvest starts mid-August."
She says an ideal future weather pattern for grape harvest would be to continue the warm days and have some cooler nights with rain every so often.
Ruby Moon is looking for harvest helpers. This Saturday there's a special event starting with breakfast and then they'll put you to work in the vineyards.
Copyright 2012 WFIE. All rights reserved.
