Champlain Valley - Grapemans' vineyard - Planting to small winery

[AlFulchino]

Hey there Appleman. First thank you for letting me know about this place.


I appreciate your sharing the info on your vines and also the amount of clusters you are leaving on second year vines....I have pruned most of my vines twice this year and some three times so this has removed about 80% + of the clusters....But I would like to leave some here and there so that I can start tasting and experimenting.


Here is a question for you...some varieties are more bushy than upright (case in point Foch) and others may have lost a cane due to wind..so in both cases a few vines that I have are just getting to the cordon or just a few inches on it....i am in a similar growing season climate as you ( here in NH)...do you believe there is enough time left to get the cordon hardened off?


Also, on the more bushy varieties I have thus far left lower foliage on the new trunks and I am wondering If i should strip these off simply to point the focus of the plant to its growing tips......or just let the plant sort of do what it does and take the extra time to get the cordons out.


Thanks in advance.

 

[grapeman]

Welcome to the forum Al. Glad to have you here. This is the friendliest forum you will find around.
You have young vines so give them enough time to do their thing. The ones that have lost shoots due to wind etc, just let them grow some extra shoots to form canes. That will give them more reserves for winter and a better chance of the shoots hardening off for better canes next year. Then next spring you can prune leaving the best one to form a cordon next year. Basically a cordon is just a well placed cane the first year left to form spurs and reused the next year instead of replacing every year with a new cane.

 

[AlFulchino]

Cool...thanks!


i actually feel like for the first time in a year and a half that i sort am in control of what is going on...I am supposed to get my pristine tomorrow...so i intend on doing a so/pristine app early wed morn because it is supposed to be over 90 that day and rain late in the day...but i have to get something on the vines they are due right now.....what oz/gallon ratio do you use w Pristine of your vines?...I will be doing a 1% solution w the SO




also when you first layed your canes to make cordons...did you leave a spur that same year so what i am asking is this...did you take fruit from teh shoot coming from the cane..or did the fruit come from the spur...in your first real fruiting year?


thanks in advance

 

[grapeman]

Al you can definitely take grapes off the canes. When you lay them down in the winter/spring, they will form verticle shoots or hanging shoots that will get two or three clusters per shoot.


Pristine should be applied at 8-10 ounces per acre. Figure how many gallons you spray per acre and add the spray to that. Does that make sense? I use 60 gallons per acre so if I am spraying an acre, I put 60 gallons in the sprayer and put the target amount of spray in the sprayer, turn on the agitator and apply. DO NOT apply on Concord or Noiret since they are sensitive to Pristine.

 

[AlFulchino]

My gallonage per acre is still changing because of the youth of the vines....the total leaf surface is growing though so I guess i will be looking to get near your rate. Early in the year I was very light....my last sprayiwas close to that 60 gallonsper acre.
I do not have Concord nor Noiret......and thi is my first time mixing it w SO...as i understand it these two mix well as long as the SO goes in last.


Pristine must be pretty potent at the rate you mentioned because it seems that most sprays are almost *always* at a 1-2 ounce per gallon ratio.

 

[OilnH2O]

Welcome aboard, Al -- you'll have to get us some pictures to go with your comments so we can all be in awe of you, like we are of Rich!

 

[grapeman]

I promised a few updated pictures, so here are some.


This one is looking down my acces road wihich has 12 foot spacing instead of 9 feet like the rest. I thought it was a nice shot to start with.

Here is a shot of Chardonnel. They didn't winter super, so the upright shoots are a bit far apart, but they shoul give nice grapes when mature.

Here is a shot of Frontenac-red grapes.

Here is a Leon Millot row- the weeds are gone now- last evenings project was this row.

Here is part of a two acre vineyard expansion for the future... Stay tuned on that.

I'm headed out to the jungle now to tame a few rows like this. Wish me luck.................

Edited by: appleman

 

[NorthernWinos]

Appleman....Thanks for posting the photos.

On the last photo, the jungle looking row...
How old are those vines???
What will you prune off????
Is there fruit on these vines inside all that growth???
How do you keep the new growth off the Frontenac??? They look so well manicured with no wild new shoots....Did you trim off the new growth????

Some of my vines look wild like that jungle row with fruit hidden inside....I did take out a few really long vines yesterday, some ran from the top wire to the ground....We had 60 MPH winds last night, so expect there was some 'natural' pruning.

 

[Wade E]

Very nice Rich. How many hours a week does it take to keep up with what you have going not counting the new 2 acres approx.?

 

[grapeman]

The Frontenac and those others are all pruned and trained to Verticl Shoot Positioning- using catch wires. There are two canes trained one each direction and the shoots that grow off it are trained up through the catch wires. The row that looks so unruly actually isn't that bad, the shoots got real tall and all flopped over to one side. I will soon take the battery operated hedger to them and top them above the top wire and stray shoots off the sides. The Frontenac I trimmed up a few days ago.


The thick vines actually have about 60-80 clusters per vine just like the ones in the Frontenac, but the clusters are smaller so don't show up in the picture. I read your post and will reply to it later when I get done work for the day. I'm expecting a visitor from the Cornell grape program in a bit so I gotta get back outside to work.

 

[grapeman]

Wade, it takes all the spare time I have and then some.

 

[NorthernWinos]

Ahhhh, so I can safely take off some of that unruly growth...I had assumed that we were not suppose to 'trim' during the summer. I will leave the 'replacement' canes and trim off some of that rangy new growth and then the air can get through there better, as well as the spray.

I do understand not to trim the ends of the vines so they can harden off...Is that correct????

No problem with air movement lately...60MPH winds last night did trim some grape canes and sustained 40MPH winds today broke off some Elderberries at the base....Too windy to spray anything today.

 

[grapeman]

You can take some of the excess growth off. If you just trim the ends, the send out lateral shoots to try to take over and it can get too bushy. Once the grapes have set the bunches and start using energy for them, you can take some ends off- leaving plenty of leaves to ripen the fruit and harden off the shoots before fall.

 

[NorthernWinos]

I'm going bush-whacken tomorrow....get those grapes looking little more cared for.

Jim did put the wires up on the row of little Frontenac's yesterday, so I have them off the ground and trimmed up and looking more respectable....Things are looking up in the Wine Garden.

 

[AlFulchino]

Thank you OilnH2O, i will post some pics in another topic so that i dont divert from the great pics Rich as posted....Rich those pics ***teach*** me so much, thank you very much, nicevines!- AL

 

[grapeman]

Thanks Al. Your vines look great also.


It has turned into a bit of a rainy day, but I won't complain. We have only had .20 inches of rain so far in July after over six inches in June. I guess I can put up some of those catch wires I haven't got up yet. We just had a pretty good shower- maybe a quarter inch of rain. Hopefully if is going to be wet today it will rain an inch before it is done. It's time for me to respray anyways. The Japanese Beetles have arrived in force now!

 

[AlFulchino]

i had one Jap beetle last week....and then 3 days ago i saw about two dozen...so i am seeing an increase...aside from SO i have had to do nothing this year on insectides....and i love having thelady bugs...but if i see a large increase by late weekof the upcoming week of JB's then I will do a tank mix of SO/Sevin and Elite 45 WP


thsi past week i did a mix of Pristine ( at a heavy rate) and SO


we had what you had in June...it was rough...this month we have had close to one inch but overall thsi month has been beautiful...kep your pics coming...ilearn SOOOOO much from seeing them......do the pics take longtoload for you? they seemed onthe long side of things timewise when i was loading mine

 

[grapeman]

Yes the pictures do take a long time to load. It can get frustrating at times. I also get errors often if I load more than 3 at a time, so you will often notice my posts edited. I load three, post and then edit to add three more. Once in a while I give up, upload to photobucket and put the link to them here. Not sure why it happens.

 

[grapeman]

It has been a while since I posted much for pictures so I thought I would give you a bunch. In order to not take up too much space on our server here at FVW, I loaded some more to Photobucket and here is a link to a slideshow.


http://s268.photobucket.com/albums/jj31/appleman0006/Vineyard/July232008/?albumview=slideshow&start=20

 

[AlFulchino]

bbbbeeeeeeaaaauuuuuuutttttiiiiifffffuuuuuulllllllllllllllllll!


questions: what are you using to keep the nursery area for example to keep the young vinesweed free?


my Frontenac and St Croix are not as clean as your leaves are and it is puzzling me as grapes on each side are darn clean


comment: 1/2 my vineyard started to drain from the rains we had 2 and 3 days ago...but we are in another soaker right now and could get 1-2 inches more tomorrow..i am fearful that we could be UNDER water for 2-4 weeks