’14 Northern Ohio Crop a “Total Loss”
The story below from The News Herald in Ohio states that a federal program will pay Ohio growers $4 per vine to replace lost vines. Considering that wine grapes are usually grown about 600 to the acre, the government support is worth in the neighborhood of $2,400 per acre.
This amount of aide roughly pays for the replacement vines. The grape growers will be on the hook for the labor to plant the vines and get them up on the trellises. The article states that new vines will be producing in two years, but that estimate is probably a stretch. Therefore, the worst economic damage of the winter of 2014 is lost production, not only in Ohio, but across the upper Midwest.
