Vineyard From the Beginning- Grapeman

[GreginND]

Rich, what kind of grass did you plant between the rows?

You are an inspiration, for sure. Thanks for the pictures.

 

[grapeman]

The grass is fescue. It is a fairly short growing grass so it doesn't over run the vineyard.

 

[fivebk]

Rich everything looks GREAT!!!

I sure wish I hadn't lost my vines....... I know it sounds crazy, but I miss working with them/ watching them grow.

I need to figure a way to come see this operation in person one of these days.

BOB

 

[grapeman]

So this update is for the new vineyard begun almost a full three years ago. I will put in a before and current phot of a couple areas. The first are obviously at or before planting and the others are from this sprin after pruning. The lower end of the field is a bit wetter and the vines are growing slower, but boy what a change. The upper section looking east the vines are larger. In a month or so I will post again when they get their foliage.

 

[ibglowin]

Amazing what a vine will do when it is actually grown in SOIL! Looking good Rich.

 

[mgmarty]

Amazing. So much work, but they seem to be doing great!

 

[grapeman]

Here are a few more pictures a bit later in the season -early June.

 

[mgmarty]

Looks good. Third year? Are you letting them carry any kind of crop?

 

[grapeman]

This is actually the fourth growing year in the ground. It was so wet we couldn't get the trellis in until last year. They should be even bigger but are mostly fully covering the fruiting wire so they should yield 4 or 5 tons per acre on the Marquette (about 15 pounds per vine). The Leon Millot are a bit smaller because of mice chewing on them last year before they were brought up to the wires. They should have around 8-10 pounds per vine average though. The other few varieties will vary.

 

[CTDrew]

Looks great grapeman! Are you using the landscape fabric for weed control only or do you find it warms the soil and helps ripening? I'm thinking of how vegetable farms use plastic mulch to ripen crops faster and wondering if you saw that effect in the vineyard.

 

[grapeman]

I used it for weed control while the vines were establishing and it still helps with that job. I haven't gotten much crop yet out of it so I am not sure how much it speeds ripening. Hopefully I will find out this year.

 

[grapeman]

About a month later, the vines are really filling out and there is quite a few grapes on most of them. I do have a nutrient problem with the vines. A leaf petiole sample shows a potassium and calcium deficiency. I went out today after the market in Lake Placid and applied some foliar feertilizer to hopefully get them straightened out. I snapped a few pictures after getting done. This shows how things have grown in a couple short months.

 

[chrisvt]

Looks fantastic, Rich! Nice to finally have more than two days in a row of sunny weather, isn't it?

 

[grapeman]

I thought I would make a note here for this thread. While I have shared this thread on WineMakingTalk I figured I would expand the reach of this along with the scope of it. Last autumn I applied for a NE SARE (Northeastern Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education) grant to replicate the process used here in order to share the method with more growers across the country. Over the weekend I received notice that the proposal was accepted and it will be moving forward in the upcoming weeks. When I have finished with the process at the end of the year I will be creating a booklet and possibly a slideshow or similar to give interested parties a "recipe book" approach to the method. This is not intended to be something for everyone to use, but may be used by many in some part.

Stay tuned there will be much more to follow.

 

[srcorndog]

Ne sara grant

Congratulations as an educator I know how hard it is to write grants as well as the excitement when your grant is excepted!
Looking for your final work!

Congrats
Charlie
The Vineyard at Hominy Creek

 

[BlueStimulator]

What a great read, I have done a micro/micro version for my home. Tried rooting some Vio and Cab S some are starting to leaf out and some are just budding. I only need 6 so of the 40 or so I planted I should come out OK. Glad you took care of the big C and thanks for posting and congrats on the Grant

 

[grapeman]

I have begun work with this new project for the grant. We collected cuttings for the project last November and stored them in garbage bags in the garage to moderate temperatures. The bundles were wrapped in damp paper towels to keep them from drying out.

 

[grapeman]

I then prepared two bud cuttings and dipped them in a rooting hormone this time. For now to conserve space and callus them I put six cuttings per cell into the 38 cell plug trays. The cuttings were placed March 11 and 12. It will take them 10-14 days to callous if they are maintained around 80 degrees Fahrenheit.

 

[grapeman]

The plug trays were placed on a heated propagation mat with a digital thermostat set at 81 degrees. The room temperature where thy are on the mat is set in the mid 50's to slow top growth. This is to ensure the calluses form before the buds open into leaves. If that happens the cuttings likely perish - called collapse. To monitor this I have set up a three probe data logger. Two of them monitor the cell plug temperature and the third records the ambient room temperature. The logger records all three temperatures once a minute. It is very accurate and it records temp changes whenever I water them or move one to prepare. The log is kept in a little SD card. I can remove it, place in my laptop and the storage data is transferred to an Excel spreadsheet.

 

[bhoenisch]

Looking forward to updates on the cutting/rooting project! I tried several last year and they failed for various reasons, but I just used a seedling heat mat with no temperature control and believe I probably had too much heat. Trying a different method this year to more closely monitor temps in the soil.