Fulchino Vineyard

[AlFulchino]

yes, sorry...per gallon
***


thanks JW

 

[AlFulchino]

a friend just emailed me this picture and asked what I thought the purpose of this trellis design woul dbe...i was told only one bit of information and that was that this trellis system was being used on a north facing slope
here is the picture and my thoughts below:

this system would make good use of a north slope which would otherwise not be the best space for grapes......if you keep the shoot spacing wider than normal and utilize the angle of the trellis pointing as much as possible towards the general orientation of the sun you achieve a couple of things...number one is first and foremost in my view....


you will achieve a low ton/acre AND you will achieve a more even amount of sunshine hitting the leaves and fruit with a wider spaced than normal spur placement...sort of like you would get naturally on a flat/or south facing plot of land but not on this orientation.....


a second big benefit will be that the sunshine will have a chance to hit the earth between the vines more than with any other format IF you have chosen a north sloping terrain as in this picture...the trunks will also have a bit more sun IF your rows are wide enough apart ( which I would hope was done here)


i can imagine better choices of landbut IF you had your heart set on using a north slope because it is all you had...or you wanted your other land for another reason then something like this would be your BEST way to tackle getting sunshine and air INTO the canopy....and if your canopy is heavy you will find it easy enough to thin and get extra sunshine in because of the wider spaced spurs


my first thought/question was this....why did the first of the shoots go up vertically and THEN switch to the three wires on top that would be angled to shoot for the sun....then as i thought about it i saw that if you used wide spaced spurs then you had a natural filtered shade for the fruit setting below if you wanted...but if you needed more then this WAS the way to get it as you could set the fruit straight out to see the sun..even the tops of the cluster


the problem i have w the system is that the fruit set will never have sun hit all sides of the fruit....but it is ALSO true that if your land faced south and you oriented n/s then even THAT fruit set would never have the sun fully touch the north facing fruit of a cluster


but once again...if you have your heart set on using a south facing slope...this would be a unique way to try to achieve it...and no doubt someone in an old world country with a less than desirable plot of land has undoubtedly attempted something like this


i should add this...i would have gone right to the angle above the first trellis wire...and NOT the way these folks did..i suspect they had the lowest wire on the angled portion of the trellis situated as it was for weight purposes and or ease of construction...personally i would have made all three upper wires go right for the sun and that means that the lowest of the three upper wires should have been directly over the fruiting wire...this would be difficult to support just on the ends with all that tension though BUT if i was onsite i can see a possibility of doing it the way they did in the picture....i would have to be on site though to see for myself because the reason to do it they way they did would have to be a sun issue


being the adventurous person that i am ...i would be eager to see what kind of grapes i could get out of these

 

[AlFulchino]

in case anyone is ever looking for a catch wire, irrigation wire etc, i just started applying a poly wire at approx 7 feet to handle the top growth of the shoots....i went back and forth between Dura Line and Spec Trellis's
<A name=deltex></A>Polyester Wire i have only applied it to 16 rows thus far, but have found it to be very easy touse

http://www.spectrellising.com/wire/index.php#polyester


this was their comment on the two types available ( the second being Dura-line)


Polyester wire vs. Polyammide wire
Due to the inherent characteristics of the material, Polyammide wire is no longer used for agricultural purposes in Europe. Polyammide wire's elongation is high compared to Polyester wire, thereby requiring retensioning after removing the load (ie grapes) from the wire. After harvest, growers using polyammide wire for trellis wires, must spend vaulable time retensioning trellis wires. Polyester wire is more elastic with less elongation, eliminating the need to retension the wire. The main uses for polyammide wire in Europe are fishtape, fishing line, and carpet for sprayer drying machines (leather dying).

 

[grapeman]

Al can you explain the fastening and tensioing better than they do after you have installed some? Thier diagrams are confusing to me. It looks like a good product and certainly easier than the wire to work with.


How are the vines doing there? A bit slow this year here with the cool spring. Give us a few pictures sometime when you get a few minutes.

 

[AlFulchino]

Hi Rich...i will get some pics as soon as able....a long stretch of serious rain (6 inches in the last ten days and maybe another inch upcoming)...the vines are going gangbusters....this weekend i should finish putting up the poly wire...and then i will comb the shoots and depending on thevariety they are 8-10 inches to as much as five feet already....
i have not thinned the shoots just yet nor the clusters...i plan on doing that in late june early july


my current concern is just the fruit set with all this rain...i was able to get a spray in on thursday but w the rain i plan on doing another this coming thursday


there are a couple of varieties i may remove next year....because their top growth wood has proven to be borderline hardy here...they probably total 150 vines..i am looking at dechaunac as one opprortunity


i highly recommend the poly wire for ease of use...one person can handle it by themself..i just stick the spool on a dowel sitting in a six foot ladder and start walking to the end of the row.....since this wire is only a top catch wire, i am simply tying it in a knot at each end...the color is black and it blends well...the cost was reasonable..i agree that their diagram has a few holes in it, but essentially they are doing all the same techniques that one would use w metal wire....no real differences...in mymind, if you have enough posts in your row then you are fully capable of knotting the first end then going to each post and pulling taut and then going around each post once and then proceeding to the next post and knotting at the end...it is the ultimate one man job...which i like


ps i saw pics of your vines...they dont look slow at all!

 

[grapeman]

That's a lot of rain Al. We have only had 2 inches so far this whole month- just about right with timely rains. It is just cloudy and cool all the time. Today is horribly humid and uncomfortable working. That's why I'm taking 10 right now. I'm going out now to try some poly wire out. It was from Orchard Valley Supply and I'm not sure what it is made of - 6700 foot spool.


I'm not going to wrap around each post since I have special fasteners. I'll get some pics of it soon after I see how it goes. I will use it for catch wires so I don't care about tension.


The vines aren't growing slow, just slow bloom development. It is running at least a week later this year. Only Frontenac is blooming about 1/3 of the way so far with nothing else at my place in bloom, although Marquette would be if I left the blossoms on them (two years old). I have grapes the size of bb's on a few of the Mn 1200 in the nursery. LOL I didn't pick off all the blooms there were so many figuring they would just fall off. Looks funny seing a full size cluster on a 3 inch high vine!

 

[AlFulchino]

swtiched over to Firefox and could not log in for awhile

anyway three weeks of rain....11.5 inches...but the unfortunate part was that it kept misting in between the heavy rain...three days of sun in a month as i have seen others mention...the vines went into the scenario really clean but came out w some signs of disease here and there...i am sure i will have to remove some clusters because of it...here are a few cute things i saw while combing the vines today

 

[AlFulchino]

 

[grapeman]

Looks like some grapes are doing well in spite of the rain. What kind are they? Looks like you must be starting veraison. The grapes are changing colors- into a nice shade of blue!

 

[Wade E]

Those look pretty big already!

 

[AlFulchino]

hi...no verasion just yet but many of the grapes have indeed gone past bb stage

after i comb for one more day i will hedge between the rows and prep for a spray and then start looking to dropping some excess clusters and also some that show some potential for rot from the rains

 

[AlFulchino]

foliar phylloxera....in the first year i only found it on one variety...and on one vine...i removed some leaves....in the second year it was found to be more widespread...on several varieties...one or two vines had a lot of this...maybe as much as 20-25% of that vine's leaves had it....this year it is on 4-5 varieties and getting just prolific enough that i am thinking of at least having somethin like danitol or assail.....

also experinced something i just call wilt or sudden wilt on several varieties...see attached pics...my first thought was eutypa but there is is no tell tale signs such as cupping of the leaves.....the reason that i suspect that it is winter injury is that last year (2nd leaf) we had a lot of wind in teh spring and lost of potential trucks and cordons snapped of early...then new growth had to replace it which means you lose 2-3 weeks of growing season.....and by the time mid july came and started 17 inches of rain in 31 days, i just think some trunks/cordons did not harden off enough

beause of this..i am recommending to anyone growing grapes that you consider taking an extra year developing your vines...in cases where your growing season is interrupted....this would mean first year for roots, 2nd for trunk only and 3rd year for cordon development...4th year a crop

if the weather is near perfect for that 2nd growing season then i think you can very easily train your trunk and cordon and crop the 3rd year

so you see...the same vine...right side was the very sames as the left and whatever food seemed to be stored in the vine overwinter fed its initial growth...then no more food and nutrient interchange down to and from the roots

to play it safe i have also sent pics to someone at the Univ of Virginia to see what he thinks

 

[AlFulchino]

 

[AlFulchino]

worlds oldest wine found in a bottle and there is a picture of it on this website

http://www.winepros.org/wine101/history.htm





</font>WORLD'S
OLDEST BOTTLE of WINE</font>

Unearthed
during excavation for building a house in a vineyard near the
town of Speyer, Germany, it was inside one of two Roman stone
sarcophaguses that were dug up. The bottle dates from approximately
325 A.D. and was found in 1867.</font></font>


The
greenish-yellow glass amphora has handles formed in the shape
of dolphins. One of several bottles discovered, it is the only
one with the contents still preserved. </font>


The
ancient liquid has much silty sediment. About two-thirds of
the contents are a thicker, hazy mixture. This is most probably
olive oil, which the Romans commonly used to "float" atop wine
to preserve it from oxidation. Cork closures, although known
to exist at the time, were quite uncommon. Their oil method
of preservation was apparently effective enough to keep the
wine from evaporation up to modern day.</font>


The
bottle is on permanent display, along with other wine antiquities,
at the <a href="http://www.museum.speyer.de/" target="_blank">Historisches
Museum der Pfalz</a> (History Museum
of the Pfalz), worth a visit
if traveling near the area of Speyer, Germany.</font>

 

[grapeman]

Al is that a Frontenac vine or is it a Marquette? I had two Frontenacs do that last year and found a tag had slid down under the soil line. As the vine grew and the season progressed,they died just like that one is. I dug down to see what I could fing and the tag had strangled the vine and it starved to death like you say. They grew back this year and seem to be alright.


Last year the foliar phyloxxera was pretty bad on the riparia based vines at Willsboro. This year I haven't seen hardly any yet. It certainly won't hurt to keep a spray handy.


How is the rain doing? We got another 3/4 inch rain today in about 15 minutes and a lot of lightning.

 

[AlFulchino]

.but it has occurred many vines.....its not a tag...checked...it has to be hardening off...it makes you lose a year to two because you dont see the loss until a month or two into the growing season..like we dont have enough to do right?

i plan on skipping the spray this year..maybe next..have you ever seen a vine taken down because it cant handle the pests?

1/4 inch last night and a downpour around 4-5 pm..i have not checked the guage...but my guess is that it was an inch+..it happenned right after i finished hedging the rows

 

[farmer]

What are you using to treat foliar phylloxera? I seen it on two Frontenac vines last year. It is on four Frontenac and Frontenac Gris vines these year.

 

[AlFulchino]

Hi Farmer..that is why i posted the not so glorious side of things..because people like me and you need to share our pitfalls as well

danitol or assail are two products you can use..another begins w a 't' i just cant recall the name...thiox or thinol..something like that...but i think you better read the label on that one because it has some injurious possibilities

my friend at U of Va mentioned to me that s of right now, although a type of phyloxera does damage roots on french american hybrids there are none as of yet on the east coast....so for the time being it is just a cosmetic issue...i am not sure about Minnesota...you may wish to check w UMinn on that

so for now i am skipping the pesticide apps

 

[grapeman]

That's why I mentioned we had it bad last year. All the experts say it is just cosmetic unless it causes such massive damage that it interferes with the leave's functions. We didn't do anything with them and there is hardly any present this year. People would see it on a tour and freak out thinking it would kill the vines.

 

[AlFulchino]

if anyone takes a walk in the woods they will see it on everything...until such time as they interfere w roots i cannot see it being an issue since just hedging a vine gets rif of most of them

been seeing some jap beetles of late....but like last year too few to be concerned about..hope it stays that way

dry heat is what i seek from here on out