# Thinning strategy



## berrycrush (May 8, 2017)

Here is a cane of my 4 year-old Marquette vine, I figure it cannot support many clusters in this young age ( this is the first fruiting year ), How would you go about thinning it? removing clusters or cutting some shoot off all together?


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## salcoco (May 8, 2017)

no more than one cluster per spur. two clusters if spur is 24 inches long. the shoot spacing looks good. I would remove the one shoot were cordon bends to the wire.


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## Stressbaby (May 8, 2017)

salcoco said:


> no more than one cluster per spur. two clusters if spur is 24 inches long. the shoot spacing looks good. I would remove the one shoot were cordon bends to the wire.



Just curious @Salcoco, is that a first fruiting year rule or general rule?


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## grapeman (May 8, 2017)

Remove any double shoots at a node (keep primary and get rid of secondary shoot). Marquette will handle two clusters per shoot even at 4 years because they are fairly small. If shoot vigor gets too weak a bit later in the season drop one then. If you don't keep a fairly good load on the vine the shoots will get really long and the canopy will get dense. With the correct amount of crop load the shoots will stop at 4 to 5 feet in length.


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## salcoco (May 9, 2017)

suggestion is for every year also @grapeman is also correct


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## berrycrush (May 15, 2017)

Never mind, a cold snap last week killed all of them:




It was a clean wipe out, no matter on the cordon, from the trunk, or in the tube, and regardless of varietal, Marquette as well as Cabs. The low of that day was only 32F. Brutal.
I guess this mean no crops this year?


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## sour_grapes (May 15, 2017)

So sorry, Greg. That is heart-rending.


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## daniyalsm (May 15, 2017)

I accidentally liked your post of dead vines and cannot seem to unlike it. Didn't mean too. Very sad to see those. In my area the temperature these days touches 110F.


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## salcoco (May 16, 2017)

grapes have three buds per location. the second bud will provide a crop but about 50% of original. if damaged again the third bud will provide growth but no fruit. keep on eye on the grapes and the second shoot should be spearing soon. remove the dead elements without damaging the new growth and you should get a small crop.


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## grapeman (May 16, 2017)

Sorry for your loss. Salcoco is spot on about more buds. Hopefully you didn't have too many secondary buds push yet but it didn't look like they had in the first picture. This is one of the major problems with Marquette. It breaks bud early and grows and is very susceptible to late freezes. If they froze and you were only at freezing you nay have a dead spot where they are (no air drainage). That lets the cold hang in there and will freeze things easier. One of the reasons to plant on a slope.


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## treesaver (May 16, 2017)

grapeman said:


> Sorry for your loss. Salcoco is spot on about more buds. Hopefully you didn't have too many secondary buds push yet but it didn't look like they had in the first picture. This is one of the major problems with Marquette. It breaks bud early and grows and is very susceptible to late freezes. If they froze and you were only at freezing you nay have a dead spot where they are (no air drainage). That lets the cold hang in there and will freeze things easier. One of the reasons to plant on a slope.



Thats spot on about the air moving down a slope. I had a cold night, and my nortons were planted above my frontenacs, and no sign of damage on the higher ground, even next to the ground, but not the same with the frontenacs. Not much up on the trellis but everything in the grow tubes was fried. I have about a half dozen that I started to fill in a couple vacant spots. The ground kind of levels off on the lower end, and that was were the cold air pooled.


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## berrycrush (May 30, 2017)

Back to square one:


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## sour_grapes (Jun 5, 2017)

Let the phoenix rise!


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## BigH (Jul 24, 2017)

berrycrush said:


> Back to square one:



Greg, Any updates on how your vines recovered?

fwiw, the local Iowa State viticulture specialist recommends 4-6 shoots per foot of cordon in most French-American hybrids. Your internode distances look on the large side for Marquette. I agree with the others, I would not have thinned any of those original shoots except maybe for a few in the head area. 

grapeman's advice of not keeping the secondaries out of bud is also sound. I made that mistake this year. Kept too many secondaries around for too long, and it seemed to sap nutrients from the primary. The result in a lot of cases was two runts.

H


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## Stressbaby (Jul 26, 2017)

grapeman said:


> Remove any double shoots at a node (keep primary and get rid of secondary shoot).



I assume then that these would not count as a "renewal spur," is that correct?


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## berrycrush (Aug 23, 2017)

BigH said:


> Greg, Any updates on how your vines recovered?
> 
> fwiw, the local Iowa State viticulture specialist recommends 4-6 shoots per foot of cordon in most French-American hybrids. Your internode distances look on the large side for Marquette. I agree with the others, I would not have thinned any of those original shoots except maybe for a few in the head area.
> 
> ...



My Marquette vines survived the freeze, but the new shoots are small and far in between, no hope for any harvest this year. The only hopefuls are the Frontenac, they are so much more resilient, the second round of shoots still bear quite some berries. Now I understand why people grow them.


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