Add Your Backyard Vineyard

[tom6922]

Had an almost perfect growing season in west central Wisconsin this year. Sabrevois, Brianna and Louise Swensons are doing very well. Marquettes did not produce though. Out of ~ 250 Marquette vines, I might get 6 gals. Granted, only half are 3 years olds but my 10 year olds had a rough spring. Brix 22 and pH still below 3.0. Will harvest tomorrow along with some PITA Lacresent.

I removed my LaCrescent this year, it required way too much thinning and tending compared to my other varietals. Do you have a similar issue?

 

[jackl]

I put in 10 Marquette vines in late spring. (between Ottawa and Montreal) They all grew well with only a few cucumber beetles early in the year. They were controlled with a thumb and index finger. If they all winter OK I will add another 15 vines.

Growing them on the ground with no pruning year one, then TWC next year.

Looking forward to the first taste in September 2023! Using the time to buy equipment and learn.

So far, so good.

I love the old barn. I’m in Central NY and planted 8 Marquette in 2015. I also have Frontenac, Lacrosse and Traminette. Mine are all trained to VSP. I picked around 40 pounds Of Marquette in 2018 which yielded about 3 gallons of wine. This years crop was looking better, but I was about 2 days late with my bird netting and lost around 15%-20% To nature. I will probably harvest the first week of October. So far I’m very happy with this variety as it seems to have good disease resistance, has tolerated cold winters down to -20F and yields consistently. I do follow a regimented spray routine of fungicides and insecticide. Good luck and enjoy.

 

[jackl]

I put in 10 Marquette vines in late spring. (between Ottawa and Montreal) They all grew well with only a few cucumber beetles early in the year. They were controlled with a thumb and index finger. If they all winter OK I will add another 15 vines.

Growing them on the ground with no pruning year one, then TWC next year.

Looking forward to the first taste in September 2023! Using the time to buy equipment and learn.

 

[Rob Kneeland]

I love the old barn. I’m in Central NY and planted 8 Marquette in 2015. I also have Frontenac, Lacrosse and Traminette. Mine are all trained to VSP. I picked around 40 pounds Of Marquette in 2018 which yielded about 3 gallons of wine. This years crop was looking better, but I was about 2 days late with my bird netting and lost around 15%-20% To nature. I will probably harvest the first week of October. So far I’m very happy with this variety as it seems to have good disease resistance, has tolerated cold winters down to -20F and yields consistently. I do follow a regimented spray routine of fungicides and insecticide. Good luck and enjoy.View attachment 65917

Maybe slightly off topic, but how was your Marquette wine? Did you oak and/or MLF?
As for spraying, it seems we cannot get the popular chems here in Canada. I need to do some reading.

 

[jackl]

Maybe slightly off topic, but how was your Marquette wine? Did you oak and/or MLF?
As for spraying, it seems we cannot get the popular chems here in Canada. I need to do some reading.

In 2018 I didn’t oak. However, I found that the acid level has been a bit high in my grapes, pH 2.35 so in 2018 I read more about how to reduce the acid content And smoothen the wine. I’m also fortunate that a work colleague of mine has a large winery on Seneca Lake in the Finger Lakes region of NYS. I consulted with him on ways to reduce acid. In 2018 I ran MLF as well as cold stabilized the wine to crystallize the tararic acid. For my 2019 batch I ran MLF, oaked and cold stabilized. However, I was unable to get the MLF going perhaps because the pH or SO2 levels were too high. I don’t have the best conditions to grow wine grapes so I’m experimenting and learning on these first small batches. The 2018 wine turned out pretty good. I’m not as pleased with the 2019. I hope 2020 is better since we’ve had a hotter summer and I’ve done more canopy management and leaf removal to increase sun exposure. I’ll be interested to See what the pH and specific gravity is this year.

 

[montanarick]

You may wish to co-inoculate but make sure your pH is above 3.2. I use VP41 MLB along with Lalvin 71B yeast which also reduces some of the malic acid

 

[koolmoto]

You may wish to co-inoculate but make sure your pH is above 3.2. I use VP41 MLB along with Lalvin 71B yeast which also reduces some of the malic acid

If I had 3 gallons of a wine that wouldn't start MLF because of SO2 levels being too high... Could I combine it with another 3 gallons of similar must that was post alcoholic fermentation, pre-MLF and contained no SO2? Would that be a good way to get MLF to start by reducing SO2?

 

[montanarick]

I would think that it might work but you want to make sure there's no SO2 left in the wine. you can check levels with a Vinmetrica analyzer. If there is some SO2 remaining it can be stripped with hydrogen peroxide - don't recall offhand what the dose is but there's plenty of information on web on that subject. You will need to be aware of any head space in your fermentor - good idea to purge with CO2 if you can to avoid oxidation

 

[Jbu60]

 

[VillaVino]

I removed my LaCrescent this year, it required way too much thinning and tending compared to my other varietals. Do you have a similar issue?

I just saw this post. My Lacrescents do not grow very well at all. Japanese Beetles must love them because they get skeletonized very quickly. I should just tear them out but every once in a while, I get a good crop. These vines were mixed in with my Brianna grape vines and I didn’t catch it until they were 3 years old. They just looked whimpy year 1 and 2 and I sent the company leaf samples after year 3 and they admitted it happened to another grower as well.

 

[cmason1957]

I just saw this post. My Lacrescents do not grow very well at all. Japanese Beetles must love them because they get skeletonized very quickly. I should just tear them out but every once in a while, I get a good crop. These vines were mixed in with my Brianna grape vines and I didn’t catch it until they were 3 years old. They just looked whimpy year 1 and 2 and I sent the company leaf samples after year 3 and they admitted it happened to another grower as well.

Oh, but LaCrescent makes such a wonderful wine. I have a friend who grows them and had to worry about them freezing out, he has them in a very low spot away from most of his other grapes. Some years he gets a bumper crop, some years just a few lugs.

 

[Ivywoods]

I will be moving to a new home soon. (downsizing) This place has a small backyard vineyard, so I will be learning along the way with this new adventure. I have no idea what varieties of grapes are here, and the previous owner did not know. He had not bothered to care for the vineyard properly while he lived there.

 

[VillaVino]

I will be moving to a new home soon. (downsizing) This place has a small backyard vineyard, so I will be learning along the way with this new adventure. I have no idea what varieties of grapes are here, and the previous owner did not know. He had not bothered to care for the vineyard properly while he lived there.View attachment 71935

Learn about the mildews and bugs and how to combat them. Price a small backpack sprayer. The spacing between vines is pretty good so your vines will get plenty of breeze to dry them out after the morning dew. Learn about pruning. First thing to remember is that you can prune the heck out of grape vines. Don’t feel like you have to hold back or you will have a brambled mess. It looks like you have top wire cordon method for your vines. As for varieties, there will be others who will chime in to help ID them.
where do you live?
Good luck and keep the thread going. There’s a lot of help here.

 

[Dennis Griffith]

If you don't like the idea of the backpack sprayer, you can always get a 2 gallon pump model and carry it on a garden cart secured by bungee cords. I typically use a garden cart as it takes a lot of walking to go back to the barn to retrieve anything, so I outfit a cart with various items that may be needed and it trails around behind me. That included a sprayer secured in one corner for spot spraying. Of course the mix is generally something like Neem as I do my bulk spraying with a sprayer on a tractor, by sometimes you need to pop those aphids (or whatever). This is just another idea, so you can have options. I have thought of building a robotic cart that would follow a few feet behind.

 

[Ivywoods]

Thank you for the advice. I'm a total novice with grapes but I have spent the last few months watching videos, reading about varieties and oodles of pruning varieties. I will still need to learn about pests and diseases. I'm pretty well stocked up on equipment from living the farm life. I am in southeast Kansas. We just came through one of the coldest spells on record for this area. Some of these vines may not recover. However the sun is out, it's warming up and I think pruning time is just around the corner.

 

[Dennis Griffith]

PS. Post pictures of the leaves and vines trunks as it will help us narrow down to variety of vine(s) you have, That, in turn, will help determine what to do when it comes time to care for and prune, and maybe what diseases/pests to watch for.

 

[Ivywoods]

I will try to get some pictures of the vines before I prune. I was over there today working on the house and checked the vines. The buds do not appear to be starting to swell but I'm sure it will be soon. Pictures of the tangled mess might even be able to help me decide how to proceed with the tangled mess from the last few years.

 

[VillaVino]

These are not the best pictures but you can see how much is pruned. My fruiting wire (bottom wire is 39” off the ground so you can see how much snow we had. The pruned picture is my 1st pruning. I go back and cut each vine back to 2 or 3 buds when there is no threat of frost. I’ll get better pictures of this year’s pruning adventure.

 

[Ivywoods]

VillaVino thanks for the pictures. Its a little hard to see close up, but do you use a spur and cane top wire system? That is what I will be doing. Also do you wait until ALL danger of frost is over? We get some pretty late frosts here, and lots of warm weather before that. I'm sure these will be leafing out before all danger of frost is over. I'm thinking I should wait until the buds are just starting to swell. I looked at them yesterday and they don't appear to be doing so yet.

 

[Coriba]

Hi all, posting here to introduce myself and my new vineyard.

I’m new here and new to growing grapes. We are in central Vancouver Island. Wet winters and some heat in summer. We planted 25 Merlot 181 on 3309 rootstock last year. We didn’t get them into the ground until late may. Pandemic interference. We got some growth last year, generally not quite to the first wire. Things look ok this year but a few are looking stressed. Browned leaves, looks like frost damage but we didn’t get a frost after budding. We haven’t sprayed yet but are getting ready too. Neem oil seems to be a good choice of general maintenance spray. Do I have that right?

Hope we can get to the top wire this year.

Dan