Grapevine Pruning 2013

A couple weekends ago, when we had a couple of days of faux spring, so I decided to prune the grapevine along the garage.  Last year's growth was extremely vigorous so there was lots to remove.

I wrote a post on last year's pruning (here).  Last year I left 2 buds per spur in addition to the bud that pops out at the base of the spur (i.e. 3 buds per spur).  This resulted in tons of shoots and tons of grapes....but the grapes tended to range from small to average in size.  The shoots that grew from the basal buds, did produce grapes.

This year I was more aggressive with my pruning and left only 2 buds per spur including the basal bud.  We'll see if this make a difference in the size of the grapes.

This past winter was a tough one...long stretches of -20°C temperatures.  As a result, at least 60% of the wood on the pruned shoots was dead and could not be used for propagating.  Nonetheless, I was able to start the propagation of ~20 cuttings and also give a good number to Fred for root stock for his vineyard in Osgoode (see the blog link to the right).  Here is my post on propagating.  I was happy with the technique I followed last year....so I'll give it another shot.

Grapevine Update

Hello Everyone.

Here is a link to a video I made showing the concord vine next to the garage....Homer makes an appearance (of course) at the end.  Here are is a photo of the grapes.

My little vineyard is fairing nicely even in this very hot, dry weather.  I did mulch around each vine with wood chips which I think are saving the day.  Nonetheless, I have watered them a couple of times.  I also put in some extra stakes so I could put a little fence around each to ward off a couple of hunger little deer that have been hanging around.  The vines that they did snack on are coming back just fine.

The vineyard showing signs of the very dry conditions.

Newly sprouted leaves after the deer snacked on the original leaves.

Munch, Munch, Munch

It was probably inevitable but a couple of my grapevines in my mini-vineyard have been stripped bare by some deer.

The two that got stripped are concords and had a good root base.  Small leaves are starting to sprout so I don't think they will be right offs. 

I will have to put up some simple fencing in order to protect them from any more munching.

Weekend in Wine Country



Last weekend my wife and I, along with her sister and brother-in-law, went down to Toronto for a Blue Jays game and a couple of days to Niagara-on-the-Lake for a few winery tours.  Although the weather was cold and wet, we stayed dry for the most part and timed our outdoor activities accordingly.

My sister and brother-in-law have been to Niagara-on-the-Lake numerous times and know a lot about the area, wineries and restaurants which really helped with logistics.  Although I’m not much of a wine connoisseur, I would say the others know their way around a wine bottle quite well :).  In fact, my sister and brother-in-law are wine-club members at Peller Estates which was our first stop.  Their privileges allowed us to go on the tour for free with some tasty perks....woot.



Never being to a real vineyard before I found it quite interesting and learned a lot which will help me with my little one.  One thing that struck me was how closely all the wineries planted their vines; the soil is deep here so the roots tend to tap deeply rather than laterally reducing competition between the plants and permitting close spacings (~3 feet).




A relatively young vine at Peller Estates.



Barrel aging at Peller Estates.





Eric, our tour guide, was a down-to-earth guy and let us taste three wines including a pricey ice wine.  His tips for enjoying wine were practical but not pretentious.  After the tour, the four of us were escorted upstairs to a private wine bar where club members and guests are permitted to taste countless wines (and even more ice-wine)....woot.

Our visit to Chateau des Charmes was also really fun.  These grounds and vineyards are also immaculate.

Because we spent just a bit too long in a small bakery buying awesome pastries, we missed the scheduled tour start time.  Everything was made right again by Sylvie, a very friendly, knowledgeable employee, who gave us what amounted to a private tour nonetheless....woot.  On this tour we were able to visit grape crushing, wine fermenting, storage and bottling circuits.  This tour also ended up with a generous tasting of wines including the best ice wine of the weekend....woot.



Closely-spaced vines.



Barrel fermenting at Chateau des Charmes.









27,000 litre storage vessels.



4,200 litre storage vessels.











Below are some interesting facts that will put the sheer volume of wine they produce into perspective:

• It takes 3 to 5 bunches or 1 to 1.5 kg of grapes to make 1 bottle of wine.
• The 27,000 litre storage vessel contains ~36,000 bottles of wine which, at 1 bottle per day, would take almost 99 years to drink.



Is That a Vineyard?

Yep!  I planted my 12-grapvine vineyard on the weekend, woot!

More than a month ago I prepared three, 40’ x 18” rows  spaced 8 feet apart in a little-used area of our backyard.  I dug up and rototilled the rows and also incorporated some mushroom compost to add more organic matter to the loamy natural soil.

Most of my cuttings have been hardening-off outside for three weeks and many had pretty good root development.  Unlike my vegetable transplants, I did not add compost to each hole but I did add a small amount of bone meal pellets for the roots.  I installed some stakes made of scrap 1.5”x1.5” spruce and will simply train the vines up the stake as they grow.

Concord cutting.

Very nice root development on the Concord.

Planted Concord with stake and wood chip mulch.

My backyard vineyard.

I planted the following varieties:

- Four plants of Reliance which is a red table grape.

- Two plants of a white (green) table/wine grape whose name is just a number.

- Two plants of a white (green) table/wine grape from a friend of the family.

- Two plants of Marquette which is a blue wine grape that Fred is predominantly growing.

- Two plants of Concord blue wine/table grapes from my main vine along the garage.

I have not started my trellis yet.  The engineering of a solution to a unique problem and time mean putting this off until  late summer or fall.

Grapevine #4 -- Caterpillar Infestation

Today I noticed that my Concord grapevine was infested with caterpillars.

What caught my attention were leaves that were obviously munched on.  After quick investigation I found many dozens of small leaves that were curled up and 'stuck' together (Picture 1) with a web-like material.  When I opened up the nest of leaves I found a single, 1 cm long, fuzzy green caterpillar and lots of black specs which could be feces or eggs but I'm not sure.  The second picture below shows a caterpillar at the end of my thumb.  The form of their nests reminds me of a tent caterpillar but I'm not sure what these ones are.

I immediately hit them hard with an insect-repellent soap solution.  This took a while since I opened up each nest and drowned the buggers.  I hope a couple of applications will do the trick as this will be quite labour intensive.

Please post a comment if you know what these things are and if I should do more than spray with a soap solution in order to prevent further damage.



Grapevine #3 -- Early Growth

The grapevine along the garage is well underway.  All of the buds remaining after pruning have nice new growth on them and a ton of centimetre-sized grape clusters have already formed.  A closer look at my pruning job actually shows that I may have left too many buds on the vine which will result in more new growth and more grapes.  This isn't necessarily bad or good.  If the root system is long and robust then it will probably be able to handle it.  But it is possible that there could be too many clusters to produce quality grapes.  But considering my recent history I'm not too concerned.

 

Grapes Part 2 – Propagation

As I alluded in my first post about grapes, I propagated new shoots using fresh cuttings from this years pruning.  My best reference for the procedure was Fred from work; he has a lot of experience in propagated vines and is in the process of completing a vineyard of about 80 vines out in Osgoode.  But if you don`t have access to a Fred, the following is what I did to propagate my new vines.

While pruning the vines I pile the cuttings so that I can identify their bottoms (closest to the main branch) and tops (the tip of the cutting).  I trim each cuttings so that only three buds remain – making the top cut at an angle helps to identify the top.  I cut the bottom of the cutting very close or through the bottom bud.

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Callusing is Key

To ensure your cuttings will develop roots you have to callus bottom buds.  The callus will appear as a bright white, fine, granular growth rimming the cut you made.  Roots will spawn from this callus.

 

Once a number of cuttings were prepared, I soaked them in water overnight with the bottoms submerged.  The cuttings were then bundled, wrapped in wet newspaper or paper towel (but not dripping wet) and placed in a dark plastic bag.  Heat is required to speed up the callusing and root development – simply place the bag in a place that has a constant temperature >80°F.  I placed mine above the television as it gives off a lot of heat -- many website references mentioned the top of the refridgerator.  After 2 to 3 weeks, the bottom buds will begin to callus -- some will have already spawned roots.  Because I was impatient I did not wait for all the cuttings to spawn roots; I planted each cutting in a container with one (sometimes two) buds above the soil level being careful not to damage the buds or roots.

I used black pails (with holes drilled in the bottom for gentle bottom watering) and a mixture of potting and garden soil.  I placed about 6 cuttings in each pail.  As long as they are placed in a warm spot (south facing window), it didn't take long for them to sprout leaves.  I`ll plant these babies towards the end of May when all chance of frost is gone.

Mike

Grapevines Part 1 -- Pruning and Last Years Harvest

A few years ago my wife asked me to plant a Concord grapevine from a pretty sickly looking cutting purchased at a local nursery.  I stuck it at a sunny corner of the house but didn’t expect much.  Well......in three years I was able to train the vine to grow 25' along the side of the garage and about 10' along the back of the garage.

Last winter (March 2011) I watched some Youtube videos and read articles on the topic of pruning grapevines because I wanted to significantly increase my grape yield.  I decided to prune my vine using the single Cordon system for its simplicity.  The main point to remember is that grape clusters only grow on new growth and pruning is designed to optimize new growth and therefore the grape clusters.  To prune, I identified one of the many pencil-thick shoots that grew off a main branch the year before.  Then I count up 2 to 3 buds from the base of the shoot and cut off the remainder of the shoot leaving 2 to 3 buds.  If you want to propogate more grapevines don’t discard the cuttings -- a topic for an upcoming post.  Each bud will spawn a new shoot which will host multiple grape clusters.  I now know that grapevines are very hardy and you really can’t kill your vine short of ripping it out of the ground.

Here is the results of my pruning.  As you can see from this kick-ass harvest, you can grow grapes in Ottawa.  When ripe, this variety of grape tastes like Welch's grape juice.