Site Selection and Winter Sun Exposure

[Fox Squirrel Vin]

https://www.goodfruit.com/predicting-cold-hardiness-of-grapes/

Interesting app. It can certainly help. At least give you a bit more confidence in trying something.

But it's complicated.

We have weather apps in Florida that developers have spent millions on trying to determine the path of hurricanes using weather models 5 days in advance to be able to advise evacuations. And out of the 30 or so used by the NWS, they have determined they are about 15% accurate on average. I don't think millions was pored into that grape growing app.

I think you are missing the point or you do not want to understand that a plant goes through a de-acclimation period in spring. A dip below freezing is enough to kill a plant that otherwise would be hardy down to -5 in December.

If you live in zone 6B, and you plant a vine hardy to zone 7 and because of what you believe about global warming you think you are not going to have any problems, you are playing Russian roulette because that zone 7 plant is going to wake up sooner than a zone 5 vine and it is going to start to se-acclimate and one late season freeze and poof, it's done. It only takes one freeze after a plant reaches a certain de-acclimation threshold. I lost half an orchard this year because of this and it was only a 4 degree differential from what the trees were hardy too.

Go ahead, lots of people are growing Cab Sav in Michigan in 6B because global warming or whatever has given the area some mild winters but why not just plant grapes that are hardy to 2 zones lower and have confidence you won't lose all your hard work and effort?

It's like us in Florida, why aren't we growing vinifera grapes like cab sav, Zin, or any of the heat tolerant Spanish or Italian varieties now that they have Pierce D resistant rootstock that is supposed to protect the vines from getting it....

Because it simply doesn't work and if it did, everybody would be growing them here instead of Muskadines that make kerosene flavored wine or American /vinifera hybrids that are genetically resistant to it Like Black Spanish. It might take years for PD to kill your vinifera, but it's going to, sooner or later. I learned to not gamble against mother nature because when you do, you WILL loose. Every. Single. Time.

 

[VinesnBines]

Interesting app. It can certainly help. At least give you a bit more confidence in trying something.

But it's complicated.

We have weather apps in Florida that developers have spent millions on trying to determine the path of hurricanes using weather models 5 days in advance to be able to advise evacuations. And out of the 30 or so used by the NWS, they have determined they are about 15% accurate on average. I don't think millions was pored into that grape growing app.

I think you are missing the point or you do not want to understand that a plant goes through a de-acclimation period in spring. A dip below freezing is enough to kill a plant that otherwise would be hardy down to -5 in December.

If you live in zone 6B, and you plant a vine hardy to zone 7 and because of what you believe about global warming you think you are not going to have any problems, you are playing Russian roulette because that zone 7 plant is going to wake up sooner than a zone 5 vine and it is going to start to se-acclimate and one late season freeze and poof, it's done. It only takes one freeze after a plant reaches a certain de-acclimation threshold. I lost half an orchard this year because of this and it was only a 4 degree differential from what the trees were hardy too.

Go ahead, lots of people are growing Cab Sav in Michigan in 6B because global warming or whatever has given the area some mild winters but why not just plant grapes that are hardy to 2 zones lower and have confidence you won't lose all your hard work and effort?

It's like us in Florida, why aren't we growing vinifera grapes like cab sav, Zin, or any of the heat tolerant Spanish or Italian varieties now that they have Pierce D resistant rootstock that is supposed to protect the vines from getting it....

Because it simply doesn't work and if it did, everybody would be growing them here instead of Muskadines that make kerosene flavored wine or American /vinifera hybrids that are genetically resistant to it Like Black Spanish. It might take years for PD to kill your vinifera, but it's going to, sooner or later. I learned to not gamble against mother nature because when you do, you WILL loose. Every. Single. Time.

This is true. In 2020 my second year cold hardy hybrids were killed back two or three times. I lost a couple vines and several are still struggling. The hardest hit were the Marchal Foch; the most cold hardy of the varieties. The hardest frost was the last one on May 10. The vines just could not handle the repeated kill back.

 

[CortneyD]

Interesting app. It can certainly help. At least give you a bit more confidence in trying something.

But it's complicated.

We have weather apps in Florida that developers have spent millions on trying to determine the path of hurricanes using weather models 5 days in advance to be able to advise evacuations. And out of the 30 or so used by the NWS, they have determined they are about 15% accurate on average. I don't think millions was pored into that grape growing app.

I think you are missing the point or you do not want to understand that a plant goes through a de-acclimation period in spring. A dip below freezing is enough to kill a plant that otherwise would be hardy down to -5 in December.

If you live in zone 6B, and you plant a vine hardy to zone 7 and because of what you believe about global warming you think you are not going to have any problems, you are playing Russian roulette because that zone 7 plant is going to wake up sooner than a zone 5 vine and it is going to start to se-acclimate and one late season freeze and poof, it's done. It only takes one freeze after a plant reaches a certain de-acclimation threshold. I lost half an orchard this year because of this and it was only a 4 degree differential from what the trees were hardy too.

Go ahead, lots of people are growing Cab Sav in Michigan in 6B because global warming or whatever has given the area some mild winters but why not just plant grapes that are hardy to 2 zones lower and have confidence you won't lose all your hard work and effort?

It's like us in Florida, why aren't we growing vinifera grapes like cab sav, Zin, or any of the heat tolerant Spanish or Italian varieties now that they have Pierce D resistant rootstock that is supposed to protect the vines from getting it....

Because it simply doesn't work and if it did, everybody would be growing them here instead of Muskadines that make kerosene flavored wine or American /vinifera hybrids that are genetically resistant to it Like Black Spanish. It might take years for PD to kill your vinifera, but it's going to, sooner or later. I learned to not gamble against mother nature because when you do, you WILL loose. Every. Single. Time.

This was the point I was trying to make! If you've been paying attention to weather patterns in the PNW and South, you'd be a bit nervous planting that kind of investment with plants geared toward the high end of temperatures rather than the low end. Freezes will kill everything you have. Heat waves will give you poor production and quality, but won't kill your vines.