Best ways to kill a grapevine

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user 36973

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Hey All,

I've got a few vines from grown from cuttings that are not the correct varietal for the row. I wouldn't otherwise be bothered by this except that these vines are not fruitful and are excessively vigorous to the point where they encroach on neighboring desired vines. I've had it with pulling 15ft long shoots out of the canopy where they've been shading my grapes. They would be nice on an arbor but not in the vineyard.

Anyway, I've tried pulling the root-base out of the ground with a chain on a tractor. I've tried digging as deep as possible to remove and damage the roots. I've sprayed them with glyphosate but the plant is too big to be killed by it.

Anyone have other solutions? Constraints are that the vines are located in a production commercial vineyard with harvest around the corner and that I would like to kill it in such a way that I can re-plant the space with a desired vine in the future.

Thanks.
-John
 
Take a long shoot cut the tip and put it in a container of roundup mix. Let it drink the solution. Works on morning glory when nothing else will.
 
Anyone have other solutions?

Instead of fighting nature, work with it. Field graft your desired variety onto the existing vine. Much easier than trying to dig up a very tenacious plant. And with such as well established root system on the existing vine the grafted variety should be able to bear fruit its second year.
 
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Thanks for the suggestions. I will plan on sticking a freshly cut shoot into my pure glyphosate concentrate overnight. That should kill just about anything!

Good thought on grafting. But as far as using it for rootstock, there are several reasons why I don't think this will be successful for me here. Central Indiana can get brutally cold in the winter and graft unions can be damaged even when protected, hence the recommendation from Purdue's viticulture team to just go own-rooted here. Also, these particular vines put out something like 1-2 dozen suckers which is not desirable for rootstock. Besides, since I'm growing hybrid and American varietals, there is limited benefit to grafting.
 

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