OK, so if you have watched Caddy Shack you probably think gophers are cute and harmless.  Well, here in West Sonoma County we would do anything to get rid of the little guys!  They eat the roots of the grapevines.  Let’s do a little math….it takes around 4 years until the vine is in full production.  Eat vine I have makes about 1 bottle of wine…so if a gopher eats a full grown vine I lose about $100 of gross wine sales.  Now they are not so cute.  Last week I had to replace 93 vines….some from gophers and some that never grew well.

I have to hand water the vines until we start irrigating the entire vineyard in 2 months, a lot of work.

I had 7 vines left over that I planted in a nursery row.