[bilbo-in-maine]

I would be curious to hear from others what is happening in their vineyards as summer wanes and our vines start to make the changes they will need to make to winter over. Some folks have first or second year plants and won't need to worry about harvesting a crop, while others have that pleasure to look forward to. Some of us are futher north, while others are further south. How do your vines show that they are beginning to shut down? Is there color change to the leaves before they drop? Tell us when you get your first frost! If you get frosted in Texas, we northerners would love to hear about it.

Some of this info could prove useful to others. Northern Winos has already described how she needs to take some vines off the trellis to cover for the winter. Where it gets really cold I've read that we should loosen tension on the support wires a bit if they are really tight. Some of us may lay down compost or fertilizer in a few weeks, or cut the amount of watering being done. I, for one, would appreciate hearing tips and tricks.

Bill

[bilbo-in-maine]

Guess I could kick things off. I have 25 first year vines, 5 varieties. None put on flower clusters in early summer. Night time temperatures are just now falling into the upper 40's.

I just noticed yesterday that my Frontenac and St. Croix vines are showing some drying, dessicated leaf portions on lower leaves. Several of the small original leaves low on the vines have completely dried and yellowed. Only two of my 25 vines have not grown to their training wires. I will have to begin them anew next spring. Meantime, I think I'll spread a light application of rotted manure around them for additional nutrition. The degree of vigor shown by my 5 different varieties is interesting. The Frontenac are all over the place, lots of long laterals and vegetative growth. On the other hand the St. Pepin have very few leaves per vine and tiny short laterals, yet have easily reached their top wire and show good trunk thickness. St. Croix are fairly thick with leaves followed by Foch and then Landot Noir. Only Frontenac and St. Croix show leaf dessication.

[NorthernWinos]

You sure have a nice variety of vines planted....would love to have more room to try some of those varieties. Will be interesting to see the progress over the years.
Your leaf yellowing just may be the nature of the variety...my Baltic Amber has been yellow all summer, then I read that it has a genetic trait of not absorbing magnesium from the soil, it looks like iron clorosis [spelling??], but don't know if Magnesium is iron...???? Anyone familiar with that???
Don't know if I would put rotted manure or compost down at this point....if you get early autumn rains and warm spells it could stimulate new growth, that would produce more soft tissue that would die in the cold winters....maybe wait till the leaves have fallen to apply any nitrogen and mulch in the north...
The same applies to roses...you don't want new growth in late summer...we quit dead heading roses in August up here, that makes the rose produce hips and shut down and harden off...think the same would apply to grapes.
I cringe when I canopy prune the leaves off the grapes, thinking it might stimulate new growth, but the fruit has to be exposed here for some varieties to ripen, so got to do it.
Good luck in your venture..
Edited by: Northern Winos

[grapeman]

Bill,
I will be sure to let you know what goes on here as it gets colder. So far I still have vigorous growing vines. I wish they would slow down and harden off some more. Probably the coming nights in the 40's and 50's will slow them down. The yellowing leaves could be Mg or Fe deficiency, but probably not bad. If your pH is between 6 and 7 you should be OK. Mg(Magnesium) and Fe(iron) are related like Na(sodium) and K(potasium) are. I also wouldn't put down manure yet-wait until mid September.


How about some updated pictures?

[NorthernWinos]

Originally Posted by appleman

If your pH is between 6 and 7 you should be OK. Mg(Magnesium) and Fe(iron) are related like Na(sodium) and K(potasium) are. I also wouldn't put down manure yet-wait until mid September.
*

Thanks appleman, I wondered about the Mg and Fe being related, so I will put down some Fe in the spring and work it around the Baltic Amber plants.
Our pH is a strong 7 here, so some stuff grows real well....have seen yellow leaves on a couple apple trees a couple years ago and worked some iron granules into the soil, it sure greened them up nicely.
Last year one older juice grape vine was yellow, I gave it some iron granules and it spruced up...this year it was nice and green and has loads of grapes, but...it is the only vine that hasn't ripened yet, it's sibling next to it is all ripened up, maybe it needed another shot of iron...?

[bilbo-in-maine]

NW and Richard,
The U. Maine soil testing service did a soil analysis for me late last winter. It didn't cover testing for iron. I wonder if iron can be delivered via a foliar spray. Have either of you used foliar sprays for nutritional tweaking? Richard, please explain what you mean by Mg and Fe being "related". Thanks.

[grapeman]

Yes, you can do a foliar feeding. Some of my soil this year was getting very acidic, so Fe and Mg were getting less available to the plants and some vines were showing deficiency. I got some liquid foliar feed and applied it late last week. The plants respond almost immediately to it. In hindsight, I probably should have waited until spring and just applied a fertilizer with trace minerals added. These are available and supply lesser nutrients. The vines have taken off growing like crazy and I'm hoping they harden off well this fall. I will look up where I got it from in the AM and post it here for you if you want to get some on hand for future use. By the way, I applied 4 ounces in 25 gallons of water and applied it to 250 vines. A quart cost about $15.00.


Think about the relationship of Sodium and Potasium - if you have high blood pressure and you want to lower sodium in your blood, eat bananas which are high in potassium. Fe and Mg work the same way. They both have similar looks for deficiencies in plants, but are caused by slightly different plant interactions- anyway just raise the pH if too low, otherwise supplement both and and things will be fine. Again, it's a little too late this year now to correct things unless they are severe.

[grapeman]

Bill,
I got the foliar supplement from Kalyx.com, an organic supply site-probably available eleswhere(they have a $30 minimum order if I remember right).The stuff is the Mineral Matrix
http://www.kalyx.com/store/proddetail.cfm/ItemID/284919.0/CategoryID/12000.0/SubCatID/2755.0/file.htm
I do not endorse this site, but had no complaints other than the product was drop shipped and took a week to get here, even though they are in the same state. The link above gives the breakdown of nutrients. Good luck with the vineyard - pictures soon please before the leaves freeze up there in Maine!Edited by: appleman

[NorthernWinos]

IRON DEFICENCY....Last year I had asked the guy at the tree nursery what I should do about the yellowing apple trees....he said to take a claw hammer and gouge the dirt around the tree up to the drip line and sprinkle iron granules around it...I got some IRON SUCRATE Iron [Fe 50%] from the Ag Fertilizer plant..it was fairly cheap for a 25 # bag....figured I might be needing some for 90 Norway Pines we planted in a shelter belt, they tend to yellow when they are young in this high ph soil of 7+...so far they are doing really well.
Last year on a yellowing grape vine I use the granules as well as some Mir-Acid..from Miracle Gro..in a blue box, mix it with water...also good for your Hydrangeas and evergreens. You could see the vine suck up the Mir-Acid right away, it greened up on the tender tips if the vines first and gradually turned a nice dark green...that plant is slow to ripen this year....maybe needed another treatment...? BUT...it had a lot of foliage, so maybe from last years treatment the excess foliage kept the grapes from ripening...I just went out to look and since I cut off many leaves the fruit is ripening very quickly...
Don't think mature grape vines require much fertilizer, might make too much foliage, but the young plants all need a good boost to get started....Edited by: Northern Winos

[NorthernWinos]

Winter Vineyard Enimies...[for the far North]
Lack of snow cover for good root insulation and natural mulch.
Gnawing rodents.
Fluctuating temperatures to trigger deacclimation.
Brutal wind chills.


Winter Vineyard Friends...[for the far North]
Lots of snow to protect the roots.
Consistent temperatures.

You got anymore?????