Starting a new vineyard

[VinesnBines]

Re: Grow tubes. The voice of experience here. I use Blue X for 1st year vines and the pink Plantra for 2nd year or beyond. My reasoning is thus: I got some used Blue X for my first planting. I managed to come up with used Plantra that are the "wrap around" style. The Blue X work good while the vines are young and small but in the 2nd or 3rd year, the vines are too big to get the Blue tubes off with out cutting the blue sleeve or tearing up vines. The wrap around can be removed much easier.

Since I have a huge supply of both blue and pink, I've settled in the blue for 1st year or very weak vines and the pink for older vines.

The vines I planted in 2021 are still small; we had a real dry summer and they didn't grow much so I may use blue on them again. The used pink are hard to keep together since they were stored flat for several years.

 

[GSMChris]

Re: Grow tubes. The voice of experience here. I use Blue X for 1st year vines and the pink Plantra for 2nd year or beyond. My reasoning is thus: I got some used Blue X for my first planting. I managed to come up with used Plantra that are the "wrap around" style. The Blue X work good while the vines are young and small but in the 2nd or 3rd year, the vines are too big to get the Blue tubes off with out cutting the blue sleeve or tearing up vines. The wrap around can be removed much easier.

Since I have a huge supply of both blue and pink, I've settled in the blue for 1st year or very weak vines and the pink for older vines.

The vines I planted in 2021 are still small; we had a real dry summer and they didn't grow much so I may use blue on them again. The used pink are hard to keep together since they were stored flat for several years.

I’ve never seen the blue ones here. Commercial vineyards almost exclusively use the orangish ones - occasionally you will see cartons especially if someone just has a few fill in vines.

My supply came from a vineyard that said I could have all I wanted - if I removed them from the vines myself. So I spent a day helping them remove the grow tubes and ended up with several hundred.

 

[Dennis Griffith]

Double A Vineyards sells blue ones. And that is a great way to acquire tubes, regardless of color.

 

[VinesnBines]

I probably would not have gone with the blue but for getting them cheap - 25 cents each. I think I paid 35 cents for 1000 of the pink (used), The pink are a PITA to keep together but easy to remove. Darned either way!

I did buy some new of the Blue X from Double A. Very nice when new.

 

[ChuckD]

I did buy some new of the Blue X from Double A. Very nice when new.

Good to know. I bought 50 blue ones from Double A. I hope to plant 40 to 50 vines each year so I should be able to reuse them.

 

[VinesnBines]

If you pull he blue ones in September and store them, (don't try to take them apart to store...it won't work) they can last 3 or more seasons. I have tubes that are goin on the 4th or 5th season. Some tubes will live longer than others. Put them on when you plant. If you use tubes for older vines, don't put them on before the last frost date They make a mini greenhouse and you have bud break too early. I learned the hard way.

 

[Dennis Griffith]

I don't have issues with animals, so I don't need tubes for that. I have fence with electric along the top. Plus I have a 'guard' that periodically roams vineyard acres. The animals seem to know that if you are on the wrong side of the fence, well, it won't be a good thing. Another consideration on leaving them in place over winter is that voles/mice can nest in them and they can chew on the trunk. I also have issues with slugs, so I don't want any shelter around the base of the vine. I'm starting to think that slugs may help contribute to crown galling as they can cause small wounds on the trunk near ground level. I can't substantiate this (yet), but it is based on observations I'm making. I lose vines every year to galling.

 

[GSMChris]

Well, wish me luck everyone… First vines going in the ground today - 175 Primitivo vines. We have a group of friends coming over to help so there will be nine of us planting.

These vines will be followed next weekend with another batch (more Primitivo plus Carignane) and then GSM the following weekend…. Busy month ahead.

I also have a bunch of pictures to upload of the last month’s building out of the infrastructure- but that will have to wait until I have more time and energy.

 

[GSMChris]

Well, I'm happy to say we are 85%+ done with the planting - just one last shipment which should show up on Wednesday or Thursday. Plants were shipped in four batches - the first three all dormant and the last one 80 Green Syrah plants as I couldn't get anymore on the 3309 rootstock.

We have had a great time with our planting parties. Each party was 2 or 3 couples - they'd show up around 9:30. I would provide them with a bucket containing their supplies and then give them a short demo on how to plant the vine. I'd then hang out and watch them plant one or two and answer any questions. We'd plant until 12 or 12:30 and then wrap it up with lunch which would include a glass or two of wine of the type they had been planting.

The parties varied widely in their productivity - some would get one plant done every 30 minutes and one, fantastic couple, planted two twenty plant rows in roughly an hour and 15 minutes. They were just flying!!!

The first plants were planted three weeks ago yesterday. The best of them has eight inches (yes I measured) of green growth including a couple of little clusters (which I will remove when they get closer to the top of the grow tube. The worst of that batch has green nubs about half an inch long. I'm completely shocked that none of them failed to grow out of the 225 Primitivo vines. Other varietals haven't progressed as far as they were planted a week or two later.

A few things we learned - grow tubes work better if you staple them than if you rely on the little tabs to keep them open. We also used long twisties to tie the tub to the irrigation wire - worked better than tie tape for us.

A friend in Sonoma suggested sprinkling a mycorrhizal fungus starter on the roots when planting. He suggested Mycormax. It was easy to do so that was one of the planting steps. Will it make any difference? I have no way of knowing but he had an 8 acre commercial vineyard for several years before selling it this year to really really retire. So if he says something works, I tend to listen.

 

[VinesnBines]

Wow! If I spent 30 minutes on each vine I would be planting for three weeks. I got 130 in the ground in about 1.5 hours and then watered roughly 30 to 45 seconds each (depending on water pressure - one gallon per plant). Just me planting and watering but it does go pretty fast. That should be my last watering of the vines. I tried drip lines for my first planting but that was too much pain and don't know that it was worth the effort. We were pretty dry last year but it appears that all the vines I planted in April 2021 survived...some are still quite small but better to be hardy with strong roots than lots of vine on top.

Yes the pink grow tubes must be stapled and even then they can pop open. They are easier to take off in the fall.

Keep us posted.

 

[GSMChris]

Well, I finally have a little time to catch up so here are a series of posts on the planting…

 

[GSMChris]

An auspicious start to the planting - this showed The day before planting

 

[GSMChris]

Me planting the first vine

 

[GSMChris]

Many hands made for light work - well sort of. The vines came in four batches, each timed for a planting party weekend. Batch size varied from 75 on the smallest batch to 250 on the biggest. We invited different groups to come help and whatever work was left over I took care of on Monday or Tuesday.

 

[GSMChris]

Then the last two vines were saved for Mother’s Day weekend. My mom came down from Oregon and she and my wife each planted one (my wife had done plenty prior to this!!)

 

[GSMChris]

Now they are resting on their laurels after that exhausting work

 

[ibglowin]

Coming along nicely. Thanks for the pics and the updates!

 

[GSMChris]

So where are we now? Well, we had 10 vines fail to emerge from dormancy (out of 600). We had planted spares of each varietal in five gallon pots so I’ll be ripping out the failures soon and replacing with the potted ones.

As for the rest of them… doing great!!

We are about two months post planting and virtually all of them are out of the tubes.

 

[GSMChris]

The star of the bunch is roughly 5’6” tall. How can I tell? I’m 5’ 11”

 

[VinesnBines]

Looking great! I would have suggested leaving the 10 with a slow start; I’ve only had one or two out of 1400 not eventually break bud.

Interestingly grapes seem to like hot, dry sand better than cool moist loam. At least in the first months.