Vineyard bird management

Vineyard bird management.  That is what we’re going to talk about this month.  It’s fresh in everyone’s mind because you’ve been doing it for the last 2 months.

With a year like ’98 when every variety is “late harvest” what is the impact of migrating and resident pest bird species?  At this writing the impact has been varied.  Some regions have experienced heavier pressure than they’ve seen.  Others have forgotten what bird pressure was.  Why don’t we blame the weather, it’s the 1998 thing to do.

Migratory bird populations do fluctuate as a result of the weather.  Wet spring and early summer conditions usually create high fledgling mortality rates.  The other factor to consider is that these same conditions also create higher than usual numbers of insects and grasses that sustain higher bird populations.  It seems for every would be catastrophe that mother nature hands down to birds, there is an offsetting bounty to help sustain the population.  Pretty cool right?  It is until it starts costing you money.

Vineyard bird management practices are evolving.  This year California growers had commercially available net installation and removal equipment, from a couple of sources.  Growers in the east have been making there own net installation and removal equipment for a while.  This made netting easier.  Netting physically excludes birds from eating grapes, game over right?  

Bird control is a full contact sport, requiring knowledge and understanding of your opponent as well as the conditions that are unique to the “playing field” if you will.  Training is a must because no matter what approach you take, the birds will counter and the game is on.  In 1998 growers used an IPM (Integrated Pest Management) approach to solve bird damage issues.  I saw netting, propane cannons, bird bombs and whistles, electronic scare devices, drip tape injected with compressed air, scare eye balloons, and hawk kites. At one vineyard, I’m sure I just missed it other places, I saw a gentleman with a shotgun in a scabbard mounted to his John Deere tractor, wearing a hunting vest stuffed with shells, an additional belt of shells, binoculars and an assistant.  This guy was very serious about what he was doing.  That vineyard didn’t have much bird damage, imagine that.

Vineyard bird damage will come and go.  Usually it will increase, and growers can blame  “El Whatever” for any weather condition they choose.  The reality is management is a constant.  There are lots of good products available today, some better than others.  All a grower needs to do is make a few calls to people who know how to make these products work and put them in action.