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I installed my trellis during the summer of our first growing season. Ran the tractor and post hole digger perpendicular to the rows. It worked out ok. Time would not have allowed me to build the trellis first. What equipment are you planning to use to plant vines and to set posts? Do you think...

Don't lose any sleep just yet. A shoot will likely emerge from somewhere, ether from a basal bud or a sucker shoot. If you have grafted vines, be careful not to keep a sucker from below the graft union. H

I intentionally omitted Verona because I don't know enough about your climate. The breeder of Verona warns that it "needs 170 days growing season and 2600-2800 F degree days", and that it ripens 10 days after Petite Pearl. Might be wise to research whether you will get enough heat to ripen it...

From my 2018 harvest spreadsheet, I tend to get 1 gallon of wine/juice per 14 lbs of harvested fruit. 1 gallons equals 5 750 ml bottles. I have pretty rich soils that produce a heavy crop. Around 15 lbs per vine. I net everything, and work diligently to eliminate other pests. You can probably...

What growing zone are you in? I recommend that you plant 4 varieties, 10 vines each. Doing so will spread out your harvest so you don't get overwhelmed all at one time. You also don't know which varieties will like your micro climate. Planting multiple varieties is a nice way to hedge...

Iowa State describes Chardonnel and Marquette as having semi-upright growth habits, and St Vincent as having an upright growth habit. I grow Marquette on a GDC. Would probably do TWC if I had it to do over. They haven't been vigorous enough to fill the GDC trellis. I don't grow the other two...

In addition to what Greg said, you should probably keep 25 to 30 buds per vine, but no more. That is what the pruning equation for Marquette would dictate based on the small amount of vine that you will be pruning away. Iowa State's pruning formula for Marquette is to retain 30 buds for the...

I have never tried to tackle a mess like that, but here is how I would approach it. First and foremost, you need to know the difference between 1 year old wood and older wood. 1 year old wood is smooth, light tan in color, and usually 3/8" thick or less. Older wood is dark brown, rough looking...

My advice is to approach each vine that looks like this and identify the wood that has minimum viable thickness, aka "pencil thick wood". Commit yourself to pruning off everything that is too thin, and then decide what to do from there. You might have some vines where you can get cordons going...

Youtube has a lot of good pruning videos. I like the series by Tom Zabadal. They move pretty slow, but they have lots of good information in them. A key aspect of pruning is being able to identify 1 year old wood vs older wood. Old wood is thick (> 1/2" usually), dark brown in color, and has...

Are there trellis wires running between the cross bars? The cross bars make the trellis system look like Geneva Double Curtain, but I don't think that is what you have. I don't see any wires running between the horizontal cross bars, and the vines look like they were trained to a different...

I was able to get 6" round posts from Tractor Supply when I built my vineyard 5 years ago. They were 8 ft long. H

Did all the dirt in that 4 foot column go into the sample? Or did the entire sample consist of dirt from 4 feet down? If your entire sample was from deep down, then I think you sampled too deep. You can use the USGS web soil survey to compare and see if you need to resample...

According to what I found, your last spring frost is around May 26, and your first fall frost is around Oct 6. That is a pretty brief growing season. The GDD tool that I use shows that you normally accumulate about 2300 GDD by the middle of September. This year you had 2500 by then. The USDA map...

Is your 60" wire at the top of your posts? Do you have the ability to lower the bottom wire? I had La Crosse on a VSP with the fruiting where somewhere around 32-36" and the top catch wire at 72. I felt like I didn't give the vines enough vertical room. Granted, La Crosse is reported to be more...

I keep the fruiting/cordon wire under "proper" tension, but don't tension the catch wires aggressively. The first year I had everything tight and I noticed the 6" end post of my H brace moved a bit from the horizontal load on it. Have not had a problem since I reduced tension on the catch wires...

I am in zone 5A : -20 to -15 degrees F. I thought about being more aggressive and growing Corot Noir, Vignoles, etc. but decided to go with hardier varieties. So far, I think that was the right choice. 2 of the past 5 years have seen winters that reached below -15. H

Petite Pearl * 2018: 23.2 brix, 3.35 pH. Harvested at 3127 GDD. 126 days from bud break to harvest * 2017: 24.8 brix, 3.29 pH. Harvested at 2970 GDD. 141 days from bud break to harvest My veronas are still babies H

The report did not recommend trying to lower anything. They did recommend a phosphorus addition at planting and to use zinc based foliar sprays. Those two nutrients were on the low side. I had some early yellowing last year in two varieties, but nothing major. I am pretty new to winemaking in...

My vote is also for CO2. Nancy would advice you to just say no to getting high on CO2. H