Re-planting old Vineyard

[nephils]

Hello.

A couple of years ago I purchased a home with 6 acres and a small .25 acre vineyard, which originally had about 200 vines. The previous owners built the vineyard in the 80's and I'm not sure what the grapes are. A neighbor said concord, and ives, and i know there are some whites. The problem is that they are all mixed up, except for the first row, which I'm almost positive is all concord.

When I bought the place the grapes had not been pruned in about 5 years. There are many multi-trunked vines (same roots) spread out about 4 feet apart, create "2 vines". I ended up heading a lot of them because of position, condition, etc. The trellis is in terrible shape, most posts are rotting and wires are crumbling or sagging to the point of being worthless. The good thing is, caring for the vines has been good practice and great for learning.

My goal is to grow quality grapes on a small scale and make my own wine, and see where it leads. I'd like to plant a properly spaced/organized vineyard of a few varieties that I like. This year I started removing some of the existing vines and trellis posts/wires. The remaining vines that were in decent shape have been pruned, but many were cut close to the ground. I know for sure that the first row is all concord, and that's the least ideal variety for me, so I was considering just ripping out the first row and replanting with petit verdot/cab franc. (about 20 each)

Some questions I have are:

Does it make sense to start replanting and re-trellising one row/section at a time, or is it best to just rip them all out and start over? Being that this is only my third season of caring for the mature vines, I feel like I'd rather do smaller trials with my desired varieties to make sure they work, yet I feel much less organized if I don't start with a clean slate.

Also, If I rip out a few vines here and there, can a new bare-rooted 1-year vine be immediately planted in the same spot or nearby? Given that the current vine spacing is erratic, new vines would end up in different spots.

Sorry this is a little all over the place, I don't have a lot of agricultural/farming experience, or big ground engaging equipment aside from a PTO 4-ft rototiller that I haven't used yet!

Thanks in advance for any advice.

 

[WVMountaineerJack]

Would it be possible to plant a new vineyard on fresh ground, doesnt seem to me to be the best idea to plant right on top of such on old vineyard, I havent done it but the soil probably needs some replenishing nutrients from having vines on it for so long plus the buildup of diseases. Can you graft some new vines onto the old ones and take advantage of roots already in the ground? It would be a shame to destroy all the concords, they do make a nice country wine. WVMJ

 

[TonyR]

I would ripe them all out, have the soil tested, work the soil, set you trellises and plant next spring. Probably to late to get good vines this year. I riped out 24 frontnac gris last week, and will be puting in 16 Petite Pearl in there place next week.

 

[nephils]

Would it be possible to plant a new vineyard on fresh ground, doesnt seem to me to be the best idea to plant right on top of such on old vineyard, I havent done it but the soil probably needs some replenishing nutrients from having vines on it for so long plus the buildup of diseases. Can you graft some new vines onto the old ones and take advantage of roots already in the ground? It would be a shame to destroy all the concords, they do make a nice country wine. WVMJ

Thanks for the reply.

I agree, I felt a little sad when pulling them out...I considered trying the grafting thing, but also like you pointed out, there is a lot of buildup of disease. It's not that I want to totally eliminate the concords, but not knowing what else I have makes it difficult to know how to make anything with them. I probably will end up just adding a couple of small rows and doing some re-shaping of the existing vineyard.

 

[nephils]

I would ripe them all out, have the soil tested, work the soil, set you trellises and plant next spring. Probably to late to get good vines this year. I riped out 24 frontnac gris last week, and will be puting in 16 Petite Pearl in there place next week.

Hey Tony, what are you doing with the soil in between planting?

 

[TonyR]

The only thing i will do is till between the posts and i have a pile of driveway limestone that i will spread some and till it back in and then plant. My property use to be a farm, the soil is good, almost to good.

 

[grapeman]

It does make it difficult having numerous varieties all mixed in, especially when you don't know what they are. How many rows are there and how long are they?

I like your idea of adding a couple rows. That way you know what you have to begin with. You would have some time to renovate the old vineyard that way either pruning and training the old vines on a repaired or replaced trellis or ripping out the whole thing and renovating the soils. That would help get rid of the disease present in the old wood and soil. Once that was done then you could replant with vines of your choice. Meanwhile in a few years the couple new rows could provide grapes to begin making your choice of wine.

 

[nephils]

It does make it difficult having numerous varieties all mixed in, especially when you don't know what they are. How many rows are there and how long are they?

I like your idea of adding a couple rows. That way you know what you have to begin with. You would have some time to renovate the old vineyard that way either pruning and training the old vines on a repaired or replaced trellis or ripping out the whole thing and renovating the soils. That would help get rid of the disease present in the old wood and soil. Once that was done then you could replant with vines of your choice. Meanwhile in a few years the couple new rows could provide grapes to begin making your choice of wine.

Thanks, yes this sounds like the best way to go. I have 5 rows now, which take up about half of the available space in that location. The rows are around 300 ft long, but I shortened them last week by 50 feet in pulling out a few of the vines...reason is because they were just too close to a busy road.

It's hard to see it because so far the planning has been all in my head. Really hard to get organized...just when I think I have the plan, I go out there and get overwhelmed...

 

[nephils]

Well, I started working on fixing the existing trellis...pulled out all of the wire and was able to come-up with a longer-mid term plan to re-wire everything and remove some of the posts. The existing trellis was built with wood posts every 6-10 feet, so I'm able to remove some to end up with posts about every 21-28 feet. This will work for a while, and also will give me more vision into what's there. It took me about 3 hours to hang one wire ...now that I got the hang of it hopefully the remaining 9 will go much more smoothly

 

[saddlebronze]

This whole topic is one that all vineyard owners have to deal with. And for what its worth, the hind sight is 20/20 here. The first question seems to be if you are going to be a hobbyist or a commercial vineyard. If you are going commercial, you have to grow what people will buy. If you are a hobbyist, you can afford to grow what you like, but it is a battle between what will grow well on your site and what you like. For certain, taste all the wines from grapes you think you want to grow and see if you like them. Then read up on whether they will grow where you are. Also if you want, do a test plot of the candidates and "promote" the ones that make it to the main vineyard. That's what I did. Even with all that I am going to rip out a lot of rows in the main vineyard and convert them to Petite Pearl as it seems to be the best low acid red out there right now. Best of Luck.

 

[nephils]

Thanks for the replies. I have now completely rewired the existing trellis, removed the excess/rotting posts, and got the existing vines ready for the season...at least I might get one more year to see what kind of grapes are there now.

Meanwhile, I planned out a 6th row of only 10 test vines - Oberlin Noir. My plan is to add 10 petit verdot and 10 cabernet franc to this row eventually, but I will see how the oberlin noir does. Has anyone tried this variety? I have never, and I can't find much info on it, but we'll see!

 

[grapeman]

A friend of mine had them growing near me and they did moderately well. It made an excellent wine and was great in blends. I wanted to get some from him to try but unfortunately he passed away going on two years ago now before I could get some.