Champlain Valley - Grapemans' vineyard - Planting to small winery

[OilnH2O]

I like the Chardonel Rich. How do you think it might do for here in Montana? I'm still looking to add a half-dozen vines for white.

 

[grapeman]

Does toast mean anything to you Dave?

Probably not a good choice there for you. Why not LaCrescent?

 

[GreginND]

Chardonel is moderately hardy in cold climates. You may be ok down to zone 5a but any colder and it would be spotty I think. I know we can't grow it here in ND. I'd love to as i really like the grape.

 

[OilnH2O]

La Crescent is on my short list... but you know me - trying to push the Montana envelope!
(Just trying to get ahead of global warming! )

(Stay tuned....)

 

[grapeman]

Winter is settling in on us here and I am not sure I like it a lot. We have had between two and three feet of snow in the last week and we are having some more lingering lake effect snows. It doesn't get as bad here as Runningwolf has it, but I would rather not have quite so much snow. It does help protect the vines from the cold, which is settling in also. Today our high will be what it is now at 12 degrees and we could get close to a record low, with minus 13F expected.

I am happy to say that I am glad I wait to prune until late winter/early spring. Now if I could learn to take a decent picture with this phone..... oh well ignore the hand in the corner. This one I took last week before the last 15 inches of snow we got.

 

[GreginND]

Look at all that lovely insulation. We could use a little more of that. I don't miss the shoveling but we have gone from a wrt flood situation to very dry drought in short order.

 

[grapeman]

We are stil in winter, imagine that mid-January and it is cold. LOL It was -18F on the deck of the house this AM. My digital near the vineyard froze the batteries up and quit working. That's gonna kill some buds...................... Expecting a high today of maybe 0 and then again tonight a repeat of last night.

 

[ibglowin]

Brrrrrrrrrrrrr.......

Hope you didn't lose too many buds!

 

[GreginND]

Rich, that is cold. Similar to us right now although we could get even colder. I wonder though if the swings in temperature are harder on the vines than the cold itself. Last year was a mild winter and many vineyards had problems. Tonight we will dip down to -20 and then be up to 30 by Monday. I suspect the swinging temperatures - especially when it rises to near freezing - is harder on the grapes. Is that your experience?

 

[grapeman]

Day to day mild swings aren't all that bad. As long as the vines got acclimated to the weather before getting really cold, the buds are fairly stable. This is helped even more as the snowpack gets deeper. When the temps have wild swings and warm to above freezing for a week and then get cold, they lose some of their hardiness. A day or two rarely impacts things too badly. This is the coldest it has gotten in 3 years now, but not a lot worse than they were. This is the reason why we wait to prune until towards spring. If we had experinced the fairly mild winter and decided to prune heavily and then get temps like this, we could end up with excessive vigor next year with small crops. By waiting to prune, we can cut buds to evaluate for damage towards spring and adjust bud count numbers to take the damage into account. That way we keep the vines in balance.

And 40 miles to the southwest of home is this castle at the top of Whiteface Mountain near Lake Placid- site of the 1932 and 1980 winter olympics and home to many worldwide winter sporting events

 

[grapeman]

It seems yesterday was a warmup for today. It is a balmy -22F this AM, but at least they say maybe up to 4F today. It will warm back up to the 20's next week. There goes another 10-20% of the buds...................

 

[GreginND]

You win! You were colder than North Dakota! We only dipped down to -15.

Can you tell me a little bit more about what you look for in bud damage? When you say you evaluate the buds for damage later in the spring (I presume while still dormant) - what are you actually looking for? I haven't grown any grapes yet. What do damaged buds vs healthy buds look like while dormant? And then how do you prune accordingly?

Thanks.

 

[grapeman]

Greg the info is probably somewhere in this mamouth post or in the one on the Cornell Baker Farm, but I will find the slides to show you.
Basically you take and prune off a few typical shoots to examine throughout the vineyard to make a representative sample- 100 makes it easy but if you only have a few vines a few shoots will suffice.
Examine buds representative of ones you would like to keep. A magnifying glass or loop helps. Using a one sided razor blade works well. Holding the cane with the tip towards you cut through the bud on an angle about a quarter way down. Look for green within the bud which is sort of like an onion-in layers which become the leaves later. Where you see green indicates live tissue. If all you see is brown, cut a bit deeper and check again. If the whole bud is brown it is dead. If it is streaked, it is damaged but might grow. Record live or dead for each bud checked and if you use 100 buds, the count of live buds gives % live buds or brown count equals dead buds.

Adjusting numbers is pretty straightforward. If you want as an example 50 live buds to provide your shoots and you have 40% dead buds or 60% live buds divide 50 by .60 for 83+ so you need to leave 83 buds to get the desired 50 live buds. I'm sure you get the idea.

Here are 2 videos from Hans Walter Peterson on how to evaluate damage.
[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_RHJ5mY3fAs[/ame]
[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWtr0jzI2Dk[/ame]

 

[grapeman]

I had a visitor this week in the vineyard, Andy Farmer from Northeastern Vine Supply. Andy came up to help me a bit by pruning out a truckload of St. Pepin cuttings. Andy is a very hands on guy and anyone buying from him can expect one on one service. He may be a bit hard to reach at times because he is always out working his nursery or helping others prune their new vineyards, but the service is great and so are the vines. He specializes in all cold climate grapes some of which will survive -40 F winters.

 

[GreginND]

I've heard nothing but great things about the quality of his vines. I'm looking forward to the Marquette and Brianna he is sending me this spring.

 

[Wade E]

Glad to hear you got some help over there Rich and with a guy with great experience is even better. Hope with all your going through you don't get to overwhelmed this year!

 

[BobR]

Here are 2 videos from Hans Walter Peterson on how to evaluate damage.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_RHJ5mY3fAs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWtr0jzI2Dk

So, if the cuttings that I take are all green inside, this does not necessarily mean that the buds are going to be good?

 

[grapeman]

Exactly Bob. Green stems is a good sign , but if the bud is dead it doesn't matter. The only way to tell for sure is to cut example buds - sacrificing them naturally. Normal 4-5 bud cuttings hedge your bet that one or more of the top 3 will be good and may grow.

 

[grapeman]

I thought I would note budbreak on about May 2 this year. It varies from spot to spot and varieties, but they are all bursting out at the seams today. Not really much different than the really early year last year except even earlier this year so far for actual budbreak- 80 degrees helps bring them on though. LOL

 

[Wade E]

I thought I would note budbreak on about May 2 this year. It varies from spot to spot and varieties, but they are all bursting out at the seams today. Not really much different than the really early year last year except even earlier this year so far for actual budbreak- 80 degrees helps bring them on though. LOL

Really Rich! It wasnt much earlier last year with the extreme temp difference last year?