Vineyard updates. Need advice on how to proceed!

Hello guys,

So I got interested in grapes and got about an acre of 1 year old table grapes (3 different varieties - Flame Seedless, Thompson, King Ruby, and a few plants of some other varieties) planted at my father's farm in Sheikhupura, Pakistan in end February or early March 2015. Since I myself was studying in the United States at that time, I did not oversee any of the plantation. Therefore you can see really high posts (got them lowered, but still high) and offset plants. I am not sure what the offset or high posts are useful for, but it is what the people from whom we bought the plants told my people at the farm to do.

I am attaching some pictures. I am thinking of going with Geneva Double Curtain (GDC), since that is what the Y posts are useful for.









Land prepared for Peas I believe. Possible expansion site for grapes, if they are successful.



I have some queries, and would appreciate if anyone could help.

1. Planted about 1000 plants, but only 700 survived. Is this a cause for concern?

2. Some plants are very vigorous with multiple canes (i'm not sure if that is the correct term) reaching lengths in excess of 7-8 feet, while some plants are only about 2-3 feet in length. Is this normal?

3. Plants have 5 feet spacing within row. Should I go with this (http://pagodelarrainzar.com/wp-content/uploads/gdc.jpg) sort of GDC or this (http://www.extension.org/sites/default/files/w/9/90/GDC.jpg). The former allows for only 2.5 feet of cane length on either, but allows for 4 canes, while the latter allows for 5 feet of cane length on either side, but allows only 2 canes. I read somewhere that Thompson canes are more fruitful on apical side, and thus short canes will probably have bad yield for Thompson.

4. Should I prune the vigorous and tall plants all the way or should I let one cane stay at the top of the post at the end of the growing season?

If anyone has any other advice, please let me know. Thank you very much in advance.

waiting for valuable input.

Daniyalsm -
I'll tell you right out - "I don't know" if I can help but might venture a few observations, just to perhaps get others to chime in.

First, my experience is in the north - Montana as you probably know is north of 45* longitude - and about a thousand meters elevation (3300 feet MSL). From your pictures I see a few palm trees in the distance... so your conditions and weather are probably much different! It may be I can only offer some generalizations.

First, I know nothing about table grapes - what I grow are wine grapes for northern latitudes, mostly French-American hybrids. What you might do is to check your soil chemistry and see if there are some varieties that might do better. You say you lost 300 plants but you have several varieties - you might see which ones were better at surviving. If one variety is a 10 percent loss that is different than if some were at 25 percent. Of course, that is assuming whoever planted these marked the areas where different varieties were planted!

Your second question about vigorous canes can be checked against varietals as well. Pruning makes a huge difference in wine grapes and I assume the same is true for table grapes. On my own, I have some plants that seem to get "bull canes" - those who take off and grow fast and far - but I just prune them all back to manage for grape production. It may be, again, one variety is more prone to that than others. But, with young plants I think you want the plant to put energy into getting the root system established, not putting the energy into growing long canes that will only be pruned. So, once quickly pruned, the plant is putting its energy into the right place for a young plant - getting firmly established.

As to width between plants, five feet is a little close - but perhaps that might be okay with the Geneva double curtain - maybe you get your production by going vertically, not horizontally - but again, "I don't know" so I'm just giving you some suggestions on what may be possible!

As for the vigorous and tall plants... again, with the caveat that I don't know... I would pick your one or two best plants, stake them to keep them straight, and start them going vertically to get to those eventual upper wires. You might start with the lowest wire as a "catch wire" to give the vines something to reach up toward.

If you are looking at potential for wine, and if you want to keep a thousand plants, you might try to get local knowledge and input as to "what's best" to fill in those plants that haven't survived (which could be water, soils, etc.) after finding out what might be the best vine to plant.

Lastly, a thousand plants is a lot - I'm assuming you are going to have help in all these maintenance chores. Unless your "help" is experienced in vines and pruning, you are likely going to have to insure you carefully train your employees and monitor their efforts carefully until you trust them to go into the vineyard and be on their own!

Good luck - you're far away, and have some big challenges, but I hope someone can help better than I have!

Unfortunately this is harvest time here in the US and everyone who might be able to help you is extremely busy trying to get the grapes in before they go bad. Just be a little patient until those that might be able to help have a little extra free time.

daniyalsm said:

waiting for valuable input.

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OK, if guessing is permitted, I'll make some comments. Like the others, I don't know your climate. As far as I know grapes require chill hours. That's the amount of time during the winter when they are dormant and the temperature is in a cool range between freezing and 45 degrees F. (zero and 7 C.) If you have no winter and no chill hours, that might be a problem. But I'm just guessing and don't have a clue about your climate. I suspect those wires are still high for small vines, but I also don't know if a long, bare trunk is ok or not. I grow muscadine grape vines, so they're ok with tall wires. They can grow 70 feet in a season. They like a hot, humid, low altitude climate. But there is no such thing as a seedless muscadine grape. If your varieties of grapes have chill hour requirements that match your climate, or if they have no such requirement, then nevermind.

@oilnh2o thank you very much for your valuable input! Climate here is pretty warm (upto 115 or so F during summers) but does go down to near 32 F in the winters. I have people, but they have pretty much zero information about grapes, other than what they hear from surrounding areas (which aren't really grape growing areas).

@ibglowin thanks for letting me know good luck to all farmers currently busy working!

@garymc I think the grapes will get a decent bit of chill hours, although no where close to what you guys get in the northern states.

Did you do any soil analysis before planting the vines? That would tell you he pH as well as any nutrient deficiencies that you could have added to the soil before planting. Your soil looks like it has a it has little organic and perhaps a lot of clay. If you did not do this this would be step one into trying to figure out why you lost so many vines and others look to be stressed.

Is there an Agricultural University close by that you could send soil samples to? Here in the states most areas have an Agricultural Extension office with a knowledgable person or staff who will come out and answer questions and make suggestions for free.

daniyalsm said:

waiting for valuable input.

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