avoiding winter kill of Frontenac on TWC?

[rwabdu]

Hi all! Need a little help if anyone has time?
I am growing some of the cold hardy grapes, mostly Frontenac, on a mountain top in Ossipee NH. I have had the grapes in the ground for about 6 years now and they have got established quite well. I am going to start training them to a trellis and was thinking about a top wire cordon. We do get temps as low as -25 here. Anybody know if the vines will be okay exposed to the those temps on a top wire rather than being buried in snow on lower wire trellis?
Thanks for any help!

 

[marquettematt]

I believe its hardy to -35 at least. You should be fine with TWC.

 

[rwabdu]

Okay, thanks!

 

[grapeman]

Taking six years to get Frontenac onto a training system is really unheard of. You should be able to train them in two or three years and get good production in three or four years. They should definitely survive those temperatures but may not ripen totally if the frost free period is too short.

 

[rwabdu]

Yeah I planted them and went away to school for a while and haven't been able to work on training them, But they are established well now so hoping I can get them trained up.
Thank you!