mattyc
Member
Picked my Marquette here in MN today... Feel like I still have so much to learn!
Just the second year I've gotten fruit on my first 14 vines; I have another 16 that should produce for the first time next year.
65 lbs grapes, yielding 46 lbs must, 25.3 Brix, 1.20 TA, 3.24 pH.
Two issues:
1 - Wasps & bees were all over the fruit again this year. I used netting thinking that the wasps and bees last year were just cleaning up after birds had broken the fruit.
2 - A fair amount of the grapes were shriveled a little, soft, and starting to rot. We culled out as much of the soft ones as we could, and the smell during crushing was more the rot smell than any sweet smell.
We had a really, really wet year here in MN. Made it through without much black rot. Got a little anthracnose - thank you Rich for helping to ID that on another thread.
Any thoughts on #1 & 2?
I have visions of plump bunches of grapes that can go straight into the crusher, but that was not my lot today. And there are going to be a lot more (for me anyway!) grapes coming in the next few years.
Just the second year I've gotten fruit on my first 14 vines; I have another 16 that should produce for the first time next year.
65 lbs grapes, yielding 46 lbs must, 25.3 Brix, 1.20 TA, 3.24 pH.
Two issues:
1 - Wasps & bees were all over the fruit again this year. I used netting thinking that the wasps and bees last year were just cleaning up after birds had broken the fruit.
2 - A fair amount of the grapes were shriveled a little, soft, and starting to rot. We culled out as much of the soft ones as we could, and the smell during crushing was more the rot smell than any sweet smell.
We had a really, really wet year here in MN. Made it through without much black rot. Got a little anthracnose - thank you Rich for helping to ID that on another thread.
Any thoughts on #1 & 2?
I have visions of plump bunches of grapes that can go straight into the crusher, but that was not my lot today. And there are going to be a lot more (for me anyway!) grapes coming in the next few years.