September is harvest time for Wisconsin vineyards, and many are delivering much smaller yields than usual this year –or even none at all– due to historically cold and wet growing conditions, as reported by www.nbc15.com.

Peter Botham, co-owner of Botham’s Vineyards and Winery in Barneveld, has been growing grapes for decades. However this year will be the first in 27 that the vineyard won’t be harvested.

“For growing grapes, it could not have been worse,” said Botham.

A historically cold winter burned the buds, and then a cool and wet spring and summer made it impossible for the few grapes that did develop to ripen.

Botham’s vineyard saw so little fruit that he decided not to harvested at all.

“You’d [usually] see a lot of purple right now [but] all you see right now is green,” he said.

And it isn’t just Botham, many other Wisconsin growers are hurting too.

Shaun Lapacek, owner and winemaker at Rock N Wool Winery in Poynette, reports that more than 60% of his grapes have been lost to the cold.

“Every half month you go out there, oh my god this one’s not growing. It’s been brutal, there’s just no getting past it, it’s just been a brutal year for us,” Lapacek said.

“All the produce, all the grapes … have been lessened,” he added.





Looking forward, growers are trying to stay optimistic but are nervous about the upcoming winter/spring. If the weather in 2020 is anything like 2019, a whole bunch of vineyards could go under.

And, reading into longer-range forecasts, the winter/spring of 2020 is indeed shaping up to be one of the worst in recent memory — all in line with historically low solar activity.







Temperature and Proxy data, along with historical documentation, reveal earth’s climate has always cooled (on average) during solar shutdowns or Grand Solar Minimums.

The Maunder Minimum (1645-1715) is probably our best and most-documented example of this. Even NASA has articles correlating this period of colder global temperatures to low solar activity, one of which being Chilly Temperatures During the Maunder Minimum.

Also according to NASA, this next solar cycle (25) is set to be “the weakest of the past 200 years” (for more on the implications see the article at the bottom of the page, or click here).







Connect the dots.





And prepare — grow your own.





Grand Solar Minimum + Pole Shift



