Starting a new vineyard

[GSMChris]

A pretty typical outcome - this is the Syrah vine my mom planted on Mother’s Day (pictured up thread) A lady bug ribbon marks her vine!!!

I’d estimate 70% look like this - bigger than a pencil at the cordon wire.

 

[GSMChris]

We also had some over achievers - 38 of the 40 Carignane vines looked like this or better (most lacked the photogenic hook)

 

[GSMChris]

We also had roughly 10% real overachievers…. This was a Mourvèdre

 

[GSMChris]

And this was a Syrah

 

[GSMChris]

So the next steps - once things dry out:

Installing grow tubes on the 20 or so vines that were cut back to the irrigation wire (15 inches).

Reinstalling the electric fence wires across the end posts - the deer have been gone all winter but are starting to show up on the cameras

trapping gophers - again they’ve been quiet this winter but mounds are reappearing here and there

installing the catch wire portion of the trellis

mowing and weed control….

 

[CDrew]

Great updates and thanks for the pics. It has been a crazy rain year. It's even raining right now. I'd say very impressive results for year one!

 

[GSMChris]

Had a little help last night with deer control…

 

[justsgm]

What was that Chris? A coyote?

 

[GSMChris]

What was that Chris? A coyote?

Yup … from having pictures of a neighbor’s German Shepard in a similar location, I’d say smaller than the shepard but still 30-40 pounds…

 

[GSMChris]

Interesting enough, no signs of the deer on the cameras since that night… lots of jack rabbits, a skunk or two and a fox but no deer. I guess they got the message!

 

[GSMChris]

Well, it’s been a busy few months both in and out of the vineyard. So it’s time for an update.

The growing season started slowly here with May Gray followed by June Gloom - lots of foggy cool days and practically no hot days. As a result, experienced growers tell me that bud break was about a month late and that things continue to be behind. I don’t have a track record to compare given this is second leaf in my vineyard - but I know this is the slowest year ever for my tomatoes - I don’t even have any ripe cherry tomatoes yet.

Having said that, we are about to experience a week or more of 100+ degree days so I think things might catch up In a hurry.

Regarding the vineyard, the grapes got off to a slow start but then had a growth spurt in the latter half of May. That allowed me to pull off all but a couple of grow tubes. It also meant I had to hurry to install the catch wires - the canes were starting to get five and six feet up in the air without support and the afternoon winds started breaking some of them off.

As the picture below shows, I’ve installed two pairs of wires with a wide bracket at the top. The vineyard slopes the wrong way with South being the high side and North being the low point. So the advice I got was to have a wide V to let more sun in at the top.

 

[GSMChris]

While we were installing the catch wires, I also went through and did a clean up on the vines - removing all of the suckers as step one.

Then, with the vines that had woody cordons from last year, I went ahead and selected spur positions and eliminated extra canes. With the vines that had reached the wire last year but which had not made cordons, I evaluated the new growth and picked the best canes for cordons, tying them to the cordon wire and eliminating the smaller canes (keeping a cane or two for a spare where appropriate.

Here is a row of Syrah vines - the right most one was one that i selected cordons this year, the one in the middle is just out of the grow tube but had two nice canes, and the left one had two cordons from last year.

 

[GSMChris]

Lastly, as shown in posts 130 and 131, last year we took the expedient step of mounting the plastic deer fence to the T posts from the northern and southern most rows.

Well, that worked fine until the grapes recovered from the deer pruning and took off again late last year and again this year. The vines seemed to have a death wish, growing through the deer fence and out into un protected air space - where the deer pruned them again. So the last project we undertook was to install a set of t-posts with a top wire and then moved the deer fencing over to that support system.

 

[GSMChris]

Next steps:

1) go through irrigation system and insure all drippers are functioning - we have hard water and calcium buildup can block the emitter holes.

2) placate my need for order and add additional ties to the irrigation tubing - it’s hanging down in places - see the last picture- and it drives me nuts

3) strip the excess fruit off the vines. I’m waiting until they have grown a bit as I’ve been told if you strip too early, the vine will simply send out new buds which is actually harder on the young vines. Plan is one bunch per cordon if the cordon is green, one bunch per spur if the cordon is woody (e.g set last year). I know the advice is no fruit at all in year two but experienced growers tell me that this plan makes sense given the maturity of the vines. I will definitely err on the side of less fruit rather than more.

4) Come September, send off petiole samples for testing. Based on results, add compost and plant cover crops to address deficiencies..

 

[Snafflebit]

You have a beautiful trellis. I only wish that I had space for a trellis like that. Could I ask where you bought your cross bars and other hardware?

 

[GSMChris]

You have a beautiful trellis. I only wish that I had space for a trellis like that. Could I ask where you bought your cross bars and other hardware?

Thank you... Definitely had a lot of help from people who knew what they were doing. I provided grunt labor and water bottles.

As for sources, of course - happy to share. One of the joys of living in wine country is that stuff is readily available - except during Covid. All of my suppliers had local outlets in Paso Robles but are also in other parts of Northern California.

Metal T-Posts, rebar, and cross-arms all came from Vineyard Industry Products
Wire came from OVS - Orchard & Vineyard Supply
Wooden posts came from Big Creek Lumber

 

[Obbnw]

Thanks for the update. Looks great.

I left some fruit on my year 2 vines. The vines seemed really healthy so I didn't think it would have much negative effect. Year 3 went great so I don't think having fruit in year 2 hurt much.

 

[ChuckD]

I don’t even have any ripe cherry tomatoes yet.

I feel your pain.

 

[ChuckD]

While we were installing the catch wires, I also went through and did a clean up on the vines - removing all of the suckers as step one.

Then, with the vines that had woody cordons from last year, I went ahead and selected spur positions and eliminated extra canes. With the vines that had reached the wire last year but which had not made cordons, I evaluated the new growth and picked the best canes for cordons, tying them to the cordon wire and eliminating the smaller canes (keeping a cane or two for a spare where appropriate.

Here is a row of Syrah vines - the right most one was one that i selected cordons this year, the one in the middle is just out of the grow tube but had two nice canes, and the left one had two cordons from last year.View attachment 103340

Do you do a lot of in-season pruning? I’m in year two on most of my vines as well. All were trimmed back to three or four buds in April. Most were less than a foot tall. Since then, Some of them have grown one or two dominant shoots while others are still rather bushy. I’m wondering if I should select the best came on those bushy ones and trim off the others so the plant directs all the energy to one vine?

 

[GSMChris]

I did not prune at all during first year - other than removing dead stuff and root stock suckers - figuring that I’d just get all the leaves I could to help with sugars for year two.

This year - second leaf - I pruned three different ways.

For the weak plants that were less than a pencil in thickness at the cordon wire, I whacked back to roughly the irrigation wire - 2-3 buds. I kept only one cane unless everything was small at that level in which case I kept two. I then put those back in a grow tube.

Ones that had reached the cordon wire robustly but that didn’t have significant canes going sideways, I cut at the irrigation wire. Those vines I then have been monitoring- cutting off all suckers - which I am defining as below the top four robust canes.

For those that had thrown one or more cordons last year, I went all in on those cordons and trimmed off everything that was below those two arms.

So now, roughly half was through the growing season, I went ahead and turned shoot thinning into a second pruning.

For group one vines, I pretty much just removed the grow tube, selected one or at most two canes as potential trunks and snipped the rest off. I then tied up those trunks as straight and high as possible in hopes of getting some decent laterals.

Group two, I went ahead and picked the cordons and cut off the extra canes. I also tipped the canes to get them to start growing laterals for future spirs vs extending into the next vine’s space. That resulted in a pretty significant pruning and one that some might disagree with. I believe that with another 2-3 months in the growing season and with the vigor of the vineyard, the plants will be fine.

Lastly, those with cordons, I went ahead and selected spur positions and cleaned up the rest. This is pretty much traditional shoot thinning - just a couple of weeks late.

So I’m pretty much done pruning now. I’ll still need to trim off broken canes and perhaps tip some cordons when the canes get to that point. But the next time I’ll really get after it will be next winter.

As for what you should do, yeah I’d probably thin out the bushy vines and encourage the energy to be focused on fewer canes. Given your winters, I’d probably do two or even three potential trunks depending on how robust they are.