“Make hay while the sun shines,” is one of my favorite farming colloquialisms, but is it possible for the sun to shine a
bit too much? Perhaps you’ve’ heard that July set a record for the hottest average global temperature. That’s even after El Nino supposedly ended. Judging by the dusty brown wasteland I once called my lawn, I’d believe it.
While the past few weeks have brought some relief locally in the form of torrential downpours, the rain has been patchy and fickle. Overall, we’re still experiencing a lack of rainfall. There are many cornfields that look like a plot of shriveled sugarcane while in other areas the corn looks completely normal. No doubt soybean and hay production will be equally spotty depending on where the rain has fallen.
There are bright spots in this summer of heat and dust. While I can boast of the sweetest melons and the hottest hot peppers I’ve ever grown, my real joy in summers like this is my grape crop. Grapes don’t always like the heat, but they do like the dry.
There 
are a number of reasons why the vineyards look good this year. The grape berries are smaller but more numerous in dry years, yielding more flavorful grapes. More sunny days means the leaves can produce more sugar sooner, which translates into sweeter grapes ripening earlier in the season. The health of the vine also benefit from hot dry weather. Many of the insect pests and fungal diseases that plague Ohio vineyards in our typical wet summers are absent in hot dry years. Finally, grapes can be remarkably deep-rooted, seeking out moisture unavailable to most plants. Often the floor of the vineyard will be dry and dusty while the vine canopy will be lush and green.
There are still a few weeks until the beginning of harvest but the weather this summer has the potential for a very good year in the vineyard. Notice my “cautious optimism” there… That’s the farmer in me. My apologies if I’m secretly hoping the lawn stays brown a few more weeks. Because, like my dad always says, “when the lawn is brown and crappy, the grapes are happy….”