Picked up some plants

I picked up a few Frontenac vines today. My soil has a fair amount of clay. Any tips on prep, pre planting? For "backyard" growing, what kind of spacing?

Im sure these are the first of a bunch of questions.
Thanks in advance.

Frontenac are VERY vigorous and you should have no problem, i think they could grow anywhere . You may want to add compost into the holes you dig to break up the clay and keep watering them till they take off.

What kind of trellis will you use? I have a top wire cordon and left two buds per spur spaced 8 feet apart (two 4 foot cordons) they still shot out bull canes and grew almost 12' each. Maybe Geniva double curtain would be a good choice or 10' apart. More buds left tames the growth a little. Might have to drop some fruit though to ripen well.

For me the old fashioned 4 arm kniffen works to keep the vigor down to a manageable level. Even though the bottom grapes get shaded a bit, they still ripen better because all shoots are 3 to 4 feet instead of 10 feet or more on a two cordon system. Pull some leaves to keep them open a bit for airflow and they ripen pretty well.

SO with a top wire cordon, using 2 cordons, once trained (3 years) the spurs seem easily maintainable. The skeleton, (trunk and cordons) are set, and growth looks to be easier/tidier to maintain. Everything is cut back to a two bud spur, it looks easier to control or keep tidy.
The kniffen looks, at least the videos I looked at, to be not as formed. You remove second year wood, and keep 4, 1 year wood shoots as your fruiting wood, that gets all cut away next year, keeping 4 more first year shoots,and repeat.

Does either boast more fruit? Which is easier to maintain? How much will the vine support? Would a top and mid wire cordon work? Kind of a cross of both? Im guessing the plant might not support that much growth...
I am a complete raving rookie to this whole school of thought, so if I am missing something, help me see it.

What you are describing as a four arm kniffen is cane pruned. I do as you suggest and use a four arm kniffen with cordons and spurs. The TWC is easy to do, but is hard to control the vigor because it just does not carry quite enough fruit load. I did a two year trial comparing 4 arm kniffen and VSP which is basically like TWC only the fruiting wire is a mid wire and the shoots are trained upwards. The 4AK actually had a higher yield, higher brix and lower TA with higher pH. Even small amounts of acid control with Frontenac are critical. I converted all the VSP over to the 4AK.

grapeman said:

What you are describing as a four arm kniffen is cane pruned. I do as you suggest and use a four arm kniffen with cordons and spurs. The TWC is easy to do, but is hard to control the vigor because it just does not carry quite enough fruit load. I did a two year trial comparing 4 arm kniffen and VSP which is basically like TWC only the fruiting wire is a mid wire and the shoots are trained upwards. The 4AK actually had a higher yield, higher brix and lower TA with higher pH. Even small amounts of acid control with Frontenac are critical. I converted all the VSP over to the 4AK.

Click to expand...

So I can train as 4 arm cordon and Spurs, cool! What's your plant spacing? What are your wire heights, and cordon lengths? Have you trained them half as long as top wire cordons?

The vines are space at 7 feet apart. The wires are at 36 and 72 inches. The cordons run to meet each other so they are about three and a half feet long. You don't space closer than TWC or have half the length cordons. That would not help control vigor. To do that you need to sort of stress the vine a bit by increasing the crop load on it. You are doubling (or almost anyways) the crop with this method and that helps keep the shoot length in check. You end up with 3-4 foot shoot lengths instead of 10 to 15 feet that constantly need pruning back. Once you prune them back they send out lateral shoots compounding the overcrowding and shading. Even though you have some shoots over the lower layer, overall shading is less.

Picked up 2 valiant vines today. Now have 6 total vines. Don't know if Valiant are good for wine, from the little I've found on them for wine, maybe not, but it's a zone 2 vine. Figured what the hell.

I got the grape vines planted yesterday. The area I chose to plant, pretty much had a clay base. I dug pits 4' x 4' 20 inches deep, and filled with a mix of topsoil 10-year-old composted manure and sanding pea sized gravel. I picked up 2 heavy galvanized sign posts, and #8 galvanized wire for the trellis. The vines are orientated NW-SE.

My wife's dog was unaccustomed to seeing the vines where they're currently planted, so spent most of yesterday evening barking at them and once it finally had the nerve to get close started pulling leaves off the lower branches. Haha!

These vines came potted. Growth of say 24". After planting, I removed all but the strongest cane(?), and secured them to 6' bamboo, that is anchored to the trellis wire.

My question. The new canes/shoots that I selected as the primary, are thicker than the stock/trunk. What is the best course to take as far as establishing the trunk/roots to give me the best plant strength/vigor?

You probably don't want to hear this, but the first year let everything grow to feed the root system well. The next spring you cut back the whole thing to one short cane and only leave a few buds on that. All the built up energy from the first year pushes those few buds next year and allows for a nice strong thick trunk. First year grow roots, second year trunk, third year train to your chosen system and fourth year begin cropping. (sometimes you can get a limited crop the third year.) If you push it too quick, the long range vine growth and cropping suffers.

Perfect. I would rather have stronger vines. Roots it is. Thanks for the advice.