Anyone Growing Marquette Grapes?

[grapeman]

What you guys see there is a single 3 year old vine trained to my Modified GDC and had almost 30 pounds of grapes with a brix of 26, pH 3.1 and a TA of 1.1g/L which is actually lowish for Marquette. The vine had 5 pounds of one year pruned wood this spring. I showed this one so Bob can see what he might get!

 

[vinividivici]

What you guys see there is a single 3 year old vine trained to my Modified GDC and had almost 30 pounds of grapes with a brix of 26, pH 3.1 and a TA of 1.1g/L which is actually lowish for Marquette. The vine had 5 pounds of one year pruned wood this spring. I showed this one so Bob can see what he might get!

But could I get something like that with a 4-arm Kniffen trellis? I hope to!

Thanks, Rich

 

[grapeman]

Don't count on that much, but they can be very productive so it is possible. I'm waiting to see what you get!

 

[Duster]

Rich,
This may be a dumb question and if so I'm sorry. I am new to grape growing. Will vines benefit from any type of fertilizer? It's not like I have seen "Miracle grow for grapes in the local lawn and garden section of Walmart"

 

[grapeman]

Grapes can be a tricky plant to fertilize. They do best for our purposes with a low to medium fertility program, especially nitrogen. We want grapes not all vines so avoid excessive nitrogen. A soil test is a good idea to give you a beginning point, then petiole tests are a better way to go after that. The petiole test just takes the leaf petiole (leaf stem) for analysis as it gives a better idea of what the vine is able to actually take up. Then you can balance it with a foliar spray. Whatever method you use, don't overapply.

 

[Trieste]

Grapeman, how tall is your modified GDC? The trend I'm seeing is 72" for the top wire of other trellis systems. Is this about right?

 

[grapeman]

The upper fruiting wire is at 6'-6" and the lower one is a bit over 5 feet. I am short so I have to stretch a bit, but it is fine. It allows for a bit longer shoots before they can hit the ground.

 

[saddlebronze]

Grapeman, is there a published article on your system somewhere? It looks like a half of a GDC, but don't know if it is public yet.

 

[grapeman]

No published paper of it, yet. It is my own design and is under development and testing. You guys are some of the first to see and hear about it. Dr. Justine Vanden Heuvel of Cornell is currently working with me on an article for my training systems trial, which includes this innovation. Yesterday we had a joint Extension and Hid-In-Pines Vineyard (me) hosted field meeting where I explained pruning and basic training involved in the trial. There will be a couple more meetings and a published final report at year end. It seems to be working well, but as any new product or system, there is a period of testing.

I am finding some interesting results with the pruned wood from last year. All four of the training systems had similar wood produced which indicates the vines vigor. The Mod GDC and Scott Henry have two fruiting wires so you might think they would produce twice as much woood, but that isn't the case. The Scott Henry produced some more, but not the Mod GDC. It had a much heavier harvested crop, so it produced less wood per pound of fruit. A vine balance or vigor is usually given as pounds of fruiit produced per pound one year wood. Marquette averaged 10 pounds fruit per 3 pounds of wood or 3.33 to 1 indicating high vigor. The Mod GDC produced 25 pounds fruit per 3 pounds of wood or a bit over 8 to 1, indicating a much lower vigor.

 

[Trieste]

45 vines in the ground today. Good start for a home vineyard, and then we got 2 inches of rain. I'm excited about the Marquette

 

[grapeman]

Good luck with them Trieste. The rain should settle them in nicely.

 

[vinividivici]

Excellent start! Please post pics this Spring/Summer of the progress.
Are you using the Blue growth tubes or something similar?

Cheers,

Bob

 

[ingoodspirits]

What a great thread! My Grandfather started a Vineyard with 1500 Marquette's. He has now fallen into bad health so I have decided to step up to the plate. I have no knowledge of growing grapes, (Except the great info from the previous 18 pages) I'm hoping that he recovers enough to help guide me on this undertaking but otherwise I'm glad I found you guys! We havent done any pruning yet this year and there are some in there 1 year and some in there 3rd year. I'm guessing I need to hustle and get the pruning done here pretty soon. I guess I need to learn some more about these before I start asking questions.... only because I dont know what to ask. Lol

 

[vinividivici]

Welcome, Nate!

With that size vineyard and different growth stages, I'm sure some of our commercial growers will give you some excellent advice.

Where is it located? You might have some board members in your area that could assist you in person.

Keep posting with your questions. That's why I started the thread due to my inexperience and small vineyard. Pictures would be great, too.


Bob

 

[grapeman]

Welcome to the forum Nate. Glad you are "InGoodSpirits". You can fill out some basic information in our Vineyard Registry here:
http://www.winemakingtalk.com/vineyards-wineries/. You can also look through that section to see who else is growing what.

The year old vines should be pruned back most of the way this year so that the new growth is robust and helps form a good strong trunk. Otherwise Marquette will tend to be pretty thin.
Twoi year old stuff try to get a well formed trunk and possibly your fruiting arms. What training system had your grandfather chosen for them? Three year old ones pruning depends on previous training and growth. When you get some answers post them here or better yet begin your own thread. That way we can all help you out and it makes it easier to follow your progress and questions.

 

[ingoodspirits]

Thanks for the warm welcome, I already feel like family I'm looking forward joining the ranks! I dont know what you call the training he has done with them but he has split most of them at the base and run two trunks up to the cordone wire. as far as the yearlings, how much height should I leave? Oh, and we are located in Kalispell MT.

 

[grapeman]

How high is the cordon wire? If it is about 3 ft, it probably is Vertical Shoot Positioned. If it is 5-6 feet high then it is Top Wire Cordon. Check out the link to get an idea of what I am talking about.
http://www.winemakingtalk.com/photo/trellis/

 

[ingoodspirits]

The cordon wire is about 3 feet high, we still have to run the top wire for the shoots tho. So I believe that we are doing the Vertical Shoot.

 

[vinividivici]

How high is the cordon wire? If it is about 3 ft, it probably is Vertical Shoot Positioned. If it is 5-6 feet high then it is Top Wire Cordon. Check out the link to get an idea of what I am talking about.
http://www.winemakingtalk.com/photo/trellis/

Great photos, Rich. Exactly what I wanted to see, especially the "Training Trial" for TWC. I think I'll do what you mentioned: a 5' bamboo stake to the mid wire and possibly the twine up to the top wire until the trunk makes it up there.

I wish the darn rain would stop! Almost like last April, except the holes were filled with water.


Bob

 

[vinoago]

Okay, so I've never joined a message board before but after reading this thread start to finish I couldn't help but join. So glad to see its still going. I'm in the very early stages of planning my mini "vineyard", lots of reading books, threads, and watching youtube videos. From what I've read Marquette seems to be the grape for me, but I'm actually picking up my first bottle tonight to see if I like it. The thread has already answered a lot of my questions, but one I do have is this, I have a stockade fence around my property how far from it should I plant my vines? I was figuring 10 feet like another row of vines.