Rain......and Lots of It

February is our wettest month and we have had plenty of rain.
Total for the month was around 200mm (8in) which is double the average.
And not only that, we have had a lot of thunderstorm activity, some quite large and intense, and unusually for Australia these have spawned tornadoes albeit smallish ones.
Just to the north of us last weekend four touched down and made their way through some highly densely populated areas and caused quite a lot of damage.

For the grapes, continual wet weather means diluted juice and exposure to fungus disease.
The latter is patently obvious with sugar levels stalling around the 10 deg Be' mark.
We need at least another 2 deg Be' before it is worthwhile to harvest.
The good news is that so far the fungus has been kept away. This means that the leaf cover will be still good enough to start increasing the sugar level in the grapes once the fine weather returns.......if it ever does.