Champlain Valley - Grapemans' vineyard - Planting to small winery

[NorthernWinos]

Appleman....could you please Post some photos when you start bottling all those grape wines....You have shown us their progress since picking...so don't let us hang.

Glad your getting your vines pruned...

I am scared mine might start 'bleeding' from the ends before I get out there.

My Honey pushes snow in the yard up all winter with the tractor, lines the perimeter of the yard with a berm of snow...so, still have huge snow banks along one side of the garden...two other sides drift up quite a bit....so am surrounded by snow banks out there. Might venture out there today before it gets muddy between the rows....can't get a wheelbarrow in there to haul off the trimmings, so will have to just let them lay.

 

[grapeman]

Today was pruning day at Willsboro for the Hardy Grape Trial. Steve Lerch from Cornell got a head start yesterday after driving up from Geneva. He had a few rows done out of 10 to give us a head start. It was a horribly nasty day. It started out raining as I arrived. Steve joked and said maybe I should go back home because I brought it with me. He had me finish collecting up the bird netting that hadn't been removed last autumn. We had left it on to keep the birds out of the Vignoles so they could be used for icewine. Nobody ended up getting them because it snowed so much. Anyway I was soaked to the skin after manhandling all those 2000 feet of netting into garbage bags.


It continued as a mixture of rain and snow all morning and changed to snow about 12:30 so we broke for lunch at a local eatery to warm up. We went back and finished up at about 5:15. I got quite a few pictures today and will post them as I get time.


Tomorrow we are going to a local vineyard to get demonstrations of rescuing overgrown and neglected vines. Should be interesting. I will try to remember the camera and hope it is dry by then.


Here are afew teaser pictures.




Marquette Before

Marquette After

Vineyard Before Pruning

Vineyard After Pruning

I should be thankful I didn't ty pruning at home today. When I got the 30 mile north to home, there was 3 inches of sloppy wet snow to greet me on top of what we already had.

Here is a slideshow with more pictures. There are duplicates because I resized some.


http://s268.photobucket.com/albums/jj31/appleman0006/?albumview=slideshowEdited by: appleman

 

[NorthernWinos]

Thanks for the photos Appleman....Nice to see how the pros do it.

How does the landscape fabric work in the vineyard???? It sure works well in shelterbelts...wish we would have had that option when the County planted our shelterbelt....

Looks like your weather went from Bad to Worse for you today....It will get better.

 

[grapeman]

The fabric cuts down weed maintenace issues. There are still some weeds come through it where there were holes punched in it by deer before we got the deer fence up. I bet you don't think you massacred your vines too badly today after viewing these pictures! We pruned them as severely last year and still had 12-25 pounds per vine depending on variety. Some vines had over 4 pounds of one year wood pruned off.

 

[bilbo-in-maine]

A beautiful sight! (but not the snow - I've seen enough for several years) Is there an experimental spray program to accompany the experimental vines?

 

[grapeman]

It was a busy day here today. It rained 3/4 inch yesterday evening and overnight and temps were in the 30's all day yesterday. Today it was actually nicer than the forecast said. I got to about 50 and had some sunshine. I was able to go out in the vineyard and prune for a couple hours. I could only work my way half way down the upper block on the north side. Past that there was a bit too much snow and where there wasn't snow, there was a foot of mud. The frost will be gone in a few days and it will dry right up. Hopefully by next weekend I can finish up pruning. The sap was really running from the cuts today. I will post a few pictures tomorrow or Monday when I get a chance to download them.


I also was reworking my vineyard sprayer to spray the denser vines I expect this year. I replaced the spot sprayer with a 110 gallon tank on a saddle. I replaced the electric pump with a hypro pump to have increased flow rates to feed an extra 4 nozzles and agitator. I will get a couple pictures of that tomorrow when I get the control valve mounted and the hoses all hooked up the rest of the way.Edited by: appleman

 

[grapeman]

I got my sprayer finished up today. I converted it to 110 gallon tank on a saddle. I replaced the undersized electric pump with an 8 roller Hypro pump run off the 50 hp tractor. I went from 6 nozzles to 10 nozzles- 5 per side. You drive between each row and it sprays one side on each side of the tractor. Then you go up the next row repeating. That way both sides of the vines get well coated. When you get to an outside row where only one side of the tractorneeds spraying, you turn off the one side with the control valve. I also put a handgun on it so I can spot spray and maybe spray my outside apple trees where I cant get good with the airblast. Someday I will weld a stand on the bottom of the sprayer. Until then I just set it on cement blocks when detaching from the tractor.






Here is a slideshow showing the little bit of pruning I did yesterday. These vines are all Verticle Shoot Positioned vines. I cut back to 2 canes, which will become cordons. I left spurs where they are and more will develop this coming year. This is an easy way to prune and goes very quickly. It does take a while to pull the cut canes out of the wires. When I prune the cane pruned 4 arm kniffens, I will make another slideshow and you can compare the differences. The sprayer is the second half of the slideshow.


http://s268.photobucket.com/albums/jj31/appleman0006/Pruning/Sprayer%20and%20Pruning/?albumview=slideshow

 

[NorthernWinos]

Thanks for the photos....That sprayer will sure get the job done....Nice set up.

 

[grapeman]

It must be spring now! The snow is melting quickly and will be up into the 60's and close to 70 all week. I am pruning as I can get more spots where the mud has gone away. Also my deer friends are home. They went somewhere else to yard up for the winter since we had 2-3 feet of snow on the ground all winter. Saturday evening there wer 3 I saw in the apple trees. Last evening I was busy pruning away with my head looking towards the vines I was pruning. I happened to look towards the apple trees and there was a half dozen of them browsing along. They must have figured I was browsing in the grapevines and posed no threat to them.


This evening I went back out to see where I could walk without sinking up to my backside. I pruned a row of year old Frontenac. That was easy- just clipped them back to the wire or 3-4 buds, depending on their size. Next I hunted around and finally settled on a row of Buffalo grapes that still have about 8 inches of snow. Not too bad there half way down and then too muddy. I have to say these are the MOST VIGOROUS vines I have ever seen!. I will try to take some before and after pictures before I prune again to finish them. I tried to prune them to about 4 canes about 4-5 feet each as a 4-arm kniffen. That required removing about 6 pounds of new wood per vine. 8-10 canes per vine about 20-30 feet each was the norm. Also lots of shorter canes. I knew they grew like weeds last year in their second year, but that is ridiculous! I'm curious how they will bear this year.Edited by: appleman

 

[grapeman]

What a difference two weeks makes around here. Went from snow and cold to a week straight of 65-80 degree weather. It has been over a week now with no rain or snow.


I finished up pruning all the vines over the weekend except the ones planted last year. They will go quick. I can walk anywhere in the vineyard now without sinking and there are only a couple spots around the edges with any snow at all.


I used several types of pruning and training methods to try to accomodate varying growth habits of the vines. The Buffalo, St. Pepin and LaCrosse all got trained to 4 arms. I did this to try to spread the canopy a bit and they are all at least somewhat trailing in growth habit. The St. Pepin is a pistillate variety meaning it must be pollinated by anothe variety- so you leave extra canes on it to give an adequate fruit set per vine. The LaCrosse is similar in growth and right next to the St. Pepin so I trained it the same. The Buffalo is just plain a very vigorous vine and I wanted to spread it out some. Two wires are at 32 and 68 inches giving a 3 foot distance between them.


I trained the Catawba and seedless varieties to an Umbrella Kniffen system. This gives a good canopy with air around it and helps slow down teminal growth beyond the downward bend. This is the method used at Willsboro on all our trial varieties.


The Leon Millot, Frontenac and Chardonnel are all trained to a VSP system. Hands down, the VSP is the easiest to prune for, but takes a lot of extra wire and fasteners. It spreads the canopy out if you thin it some during the season but requires an ongoing training into the catchwires.Edited by: appleman

 

[grapeman]

I had to do a sudden spray for Steely Beetle-or grape flea beetle. Overnight it went from no sightings to about 5 on every 3 vines. They feed on the swollen buds- that's right, we entered bud-swell today also. I lost almost the total Concord crop last year in two days from the Steely beetles. They destroyed almost all of the primary buds before I discovered them. I got to try out my new spray rig - what a pleasure. It took me 15 minutes tops to spray the whole acre of grapes. With no canopy yet, I just sprayed every other row(because the sprayer sprays both sides- 2 rows at once when little canopy.

 

[swillologist]

I'm glad you caught them early this spring.
The wind was blowing hard enough to dry you most of the weeping. This is the only one I could find this morning.

No bud swell yet. Some of the plums are showing color in the buds.

 

[Waldo]

What do you spray with appleman?

 

[grapeman]

Waldo it is just plain ole Sevin- good for all kinds of chewing insects. I'm hoping enough stayed on the vines yesterday because we had a few small showers overnight. I will need to check on them after a while later today and see if they are gone.

 

[grapeman]

The Sevin seems to have done the trick on the Steely Betteles. I couldn't find a single one tonight. Yahoo! I saw enough of them today though at Willsboro. For those of you that don't know yet, I am working two days a week now at the Willsboro Research Farm which is part of the Cornell System. Today and tomorrow are work days there. We have reached the spray threshold for IPM(Integrated Pest Management) on the Steely Beetles. I couldn't put on the Sevin today because of stiff winds off Lake Champlain- really choppy today.


I got a bit more sunburn today, but had a great time.

 

[Waldo]

I have been studying, with some interest, the practice of erecting bat houses and using them for insect control. Any experience out there

 

[swillologist]

I have had one on the back side of the barn for a couple of years now. I don't think anyone has made a home yet. I do see them flying around the light at night close to where the house is. They are in the area.I may have to move it to a tree.

 

[bj4271]

Waldo,


I had read where they eat 100x more mosquitos than purple martins, so I built a couple & hung them in trees & when my wife bought one in your area I hung it also. I had seen bats around before & since; but have never seen any going or coming to the houses.


When the frowth of one tree caused one fo the houses to fall it had no sign anything had ever used it. Who knows?

 

[grapeman]

Just plant things near that old haunted house and you don't need to worry about having bats- they are already there. We have bats living somewhere near here, but you can't locate them. It's pretty freaky watching them swooping around at almost dark catching bugs.

 

[rrawhide]

hi all
we had a board on board redwood house for 25 years and had lots of bats. we even had bats in our belfrey!! since the wood moved during the different seasons there were lots of gaps between the boards. we tried everything known to man - from bat electronic repellers; chalk; rags; tape; cats and dogs, bat experts and even shotguns!!! . finally we called the local college and also did a survey online and found out that the only way to rid your self of them is to exclude them. there are lots of treatments but all are expensive. SO now we have a Hardie Board sided house!!! and no bats. the good thing tho was when we had the bats we did not have many bugs or mosquitos. NOW we have bugs and mosquitos around the pool area. House looks great but now have to build a couple of bat houses and hope to get a few back. alas - never happy are we? good luck!!!