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I'm not too much further south (northeast Illinois) and we got -38F ambient for a night. I had about 90% bud loss on my Vidal Blanc. The Frontenac, Petite Pearl, Itasca and Frontenac Gris all handled it with minimal damage.

My understanding with nets is that there is no effect as far as shading. With regards to wasps, I lost a lot of grapes to them last year before I hit the grapes with Liquid Sevin. That completely mitigated the issue.

Looks like you got yourself a Frontenac Gris vine. I've got a row of them, I let a little fruit come in on them here's mine for comparison: Your vine looks healthy, but I gather you intended to have the Noir. They do have a money back guarantee at Double A, so If you wanted to get your $5...

I track everything in excel sheets. I have formulas for a lot of the things that I need, but its basically a glorified piece of paper. My operation is tiny right now. I'm growing though, and I'm wondering if things are going to start falling through the cracks. Would you be opposed to sharing...

When I'm harvesting I check all 3: pH, TA and Brix. I've found that TA is one of the more useful numbers to have, as managing the acid is one of my main goals in the winery. The standard of pH x pH x Brix > 250 should work if you're not inclined to do titration to get the TA.

Good to hear the issue is resolved. Double check the label of the Sevin that you purchased. If you bought an older bottle, it is Carbaryl, and will have a longer PHI than the Zeta-Cypermethrin newer Sevin which has a PHI of 1 day. So if you sprayed the older stuff you'll need to wait the full...

Because I have other vines that are lower in wetter areas, I wasn't exactly sure. This is a grafted Vidal vine. It is currently pushing up new growth below the graft, and the graft looks very swollen. I'm wondering now if it is Crown gall. I'll try and get a photo up soon.

I dunno... I found the comment amusing. :) Jokes aside, I'll take a stab at this since no one else has chimed in. I've only ran into it once myself on a concord bunch. I cut off the diseased material and threw it away. I haven't seen it since. I spray a rotation of Topsin M, Mancozeb, and...

Water and dish soap work well to kill them, but not to repel them. I used that method and knocked them by hand into a Tupperware container filled with soapy water my first year. By the second year there were too many leaves and too many JBs to continue that method. That's when I discovered...

Ditto on the Liquid Sevin. I've had great results with it. I've done two whole vineyard sprays, and then I walk through on a daily basis with a squirt bottle. If your operation is small enough, then a hand bottle will be fine. Otherwise you can get a 2 or 4 gallon pump sprayer. The benefit of...

I read the Wikipedia. I guess they're harmless. Sure are ugly, though.

All day sun is best, but in backyard vineyards there is always going to be some shade especially if your neighbors have trees. My plot has the issue with trees on all sides. So while all but a few vines get good sun, there isn't any part of the day in which they don't get some kind of shade. I...

Odds are your Marquette are not grafted (I'm not aware of any reason to do so in your region, and not aware of any nursery that sells grafted Marquette vines). I'm not as familiar with Foch. I know you can purchase them grafted. If you still have it, you can check your original order receipt. It...

I handled my JBs by hand the first year, spending 30 minutes a day flicking beetles into a bucket. Then I realized that organic wasn't ever going to happen in my climate (It was more of me being a cheapskate than anything) and went and bought Sevin. Boy was I thrilled with the result and I'm...

I've got a single Riparia vine I'm messing around with. https://kesselringvineyard.wordpress.com/ I found this and this will probably have some good information about pollination and Riparia growth habit. Good luck.

It'd be really nice if the conversation ended after: "Is it your land? No? Okay, have a nice day then." I'd check out some of the newer Minnesota Varieties. I've been pretty pleased with my Itasca and Petite Pearl thus far.

I've been using the same heat gun I got from Ace Hardware back when I was in the Army and was using one to shine my boots (melting the Kiwi in made it easier to polish to a mirror shine). No complaints. Can't say I'd want to drop over $200 on a device that does the same thing.

The Plan Commission. That whole process is where I spent the most red tape money. I'm happy it is out of the way. Have you settled on the varieties you plan on planting? Will you be managing those or hiring help to take care of them? It's encouraging to read your story and follow along with...