HMC News – August 2026

It’s a great day for grapes! With harvest continuing ahead of schedule, now is a perfect time to showcase and enjoy grapes. There are multiple varieties available of red and green grapes, as well as our Solbrio black grapes. The season continues to be anywhere from three to four weeks ahead of schedule. The fruit is beautiful and delicious, and is the perfect end of summer treat to feature at your stores. It can also be featured on your menus or in your schools. Please reach out to your HMC Farms representative to set your grape ads today!

The triple degree heat is finally coming to an end! It is a nice, much needed reprieve from the last two weeks. We experimented with repurposing our hail netting as shade netting in our trees during the heat spell, but did not see a real benefit for the fruit. Innovation and experimentation are constantly underway in our orchards and vineyards. While not all ideas are successful, it is important for us to continue to explore any ideas that can improve our farming techniques as well as the overall quality of our fruit.

Every year, we cover our vineyards in preparation for rain. The covers are designed with perforations down the center, allowing rainwater to collect and drain through the middle of the V-trellis, away from the fruit. This year, we are testing a new approach. We began installing the plastic earlier than ever, but are leaving the covers undeployed until rain is actually in the forecast. Once the covers are deployed, they reduce evapotranspiration within the vineyard, so timing is important—we want to protect the fruit without covering the vines earlier than necessary. In recent years, rain events have been trending earlier in the season and often appearing in the forecast with very little notice. By having the plastic already in place and ready to deploy, we hope this new system will allow us to quickly protect more acreage when rain is approaching, while still giving the vines as much uncovered time as possible.