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Buds are always located at the nodes. The internodes have no buds. Cutting back to 2 buds means cutting back so that you have 2 nodes from last year's growth. The buds are already formed, they are just dormant. Find two or three nodes on smooth, 1 year old wood and snip about 3/4" above the...

Cutting back to 2 or 3 buds should be your default decision. All weaklings should get this treatment, as well as most of the decent growers. You can continue growth from your strongest vines. For those, cut back to pencil thick wood and resume growth from there. Once the top few buds push out...

Lime sulfur info from Mike White at Iowa State

High tensile wire should not be twisted. If you use high tensile wire to build your H brace, then crimp it to an inline wire strainer and use the strainer to tighten. I used barbless double stranded wire and twisted with broken hockey sticks when I built my H braces. Barbed wire without the...

I ripped out my Foch by digging a few inches below the trunk and wrapping a chain around as many laterals and the trunk as I could. Then I ripped the vine out with the side by side. Cleaned up by pulling up as many roots as I could, which wasn't too bad in my sandy soil. Did it all in the spring...

I tried to use solid stoppers in my plastic carboys and discovered that they would pop out with fluctuations in temperature. H

I trap fruit flies with a combination of vinegar traps all over the house and Raid Fly Sticks near the wine during fermentation. I stick a few grapes on them and place them right above my fermentation buckets. They are coated with fruit flies now. Also, consider replacing your liquid airlocks...

Do you remember what the brix was at when the pH was around 3.6? Your brix*pH*pH is 317, which is up there. H

How many GDD were you at on the day you harvested? Did you see any bunch stem necrosis on your clusters? You said you picked 72 lbs from 75 vines, so overcropping doesn't sound like the issue. If everything was healthy, then it sounds like you were 150-200 GDD short. Not sure where that heat...

I typically only ameliorate if fermentation, MLF, and cold crashing come up short, and only on grapes that had a starting brix above 25. Prefer to blend or reduce acids chemically if my starting sugar was on the low side. Also, I don't make many acid adjustments before fermentation if I think...

My petite pearl has the highest pH and lowest TA of any red variety I grow. My goto yeast has been RC-212, which is similar to Premier Rouge (aka Pasteur Red). I used Premier Rouge in 2016 and 212 in the two years since. This year I am giving ICV-D254 a try. I have never used any of those other...

Looking back at the cluster pics you posted in August, I question whether your vines are really Marquette. Marquette clusters are small to medium in size, and are somewhat tight. Your clusters were bigger and loose, and the grapes never turned the deep blue/purple that Marquette does. Your...

The active ingredient in mustang maxx is Zeta-cypermethrin*S-Cyano. Is that the same ingredient in new liquid sevin? Sevin doesn't list the S-cyano suffix. The average half life on zeta-cyp on foliage is 5 days. Sun, water, and oxygen break it down. H

MIke White, Iowa State's longtime viticulture specialist, ID'd this as a bumble flower beetle. Not supposed to be an economic pest.

Can anyone identify this winged berry sucking insect? About the size of a dime. They bury their heads deep in the berries and cause a huge mess, which attracts other rodents. I pinched this ones head, so that part looks a little off. They can fly, but just barely by the looks of it. Located in...

Do you add any k-meta before fermentation? H

I have seen recommendations that pectic enzyme should not be added within 12 hours of a k-meta addition. I think the theory is that the enzyme doesn't work as well in the presence of sulfur dioxide gas. Yesterday, I wanted to press my Edelweiss grapes soon after crushing them, but i also wanted...

I think they either gave you Frontenac Gris by mistake, or they gave you a Frontenac that happened to undergo the same mutation that created Fr Gris. That isn't unheard of. The mutation for Fr Blanc appeared in different locations. It could also be a new mutation. Will be interesting to see if...

Consider starting a new thread I think you mean shoots or cordons and not tendrils. A diagram would help. I think people are having a tough time visualizing what you mean. More vines does not equal more fruit. X feet along a single horizontal wire only has so much fruiting capacity. A well...

Marquette is one variety where I usually don't bother with TA until I measure the must. For me pH, brix, and berry appearance (not raisining) are the primary harvest parameters. 3.1 is the highest I have managed to get the pH in 3 seasons. Measured yesterday at 19 brix, and 2.87 pH. Important to...