Reviving Idle Vineyard

[CTDrew]

So this season, due to health issues that are now generally resolved, I was not able to do much in the way of vineyard management on my hobby vines. They were pruned in the spring, but they did not have much care beyond that and sat idle. The vines have been in for 9 seasons.
I am trying to get together a to-do list to get next season on track. Obviously I will prune, tie, and dormant spray in a few months. I have raked out all the leaves and litter from this season already. Then I would get back to regular maintenance and spraying for next season. Is there anything else I am not thinking of that would be good to do this off season or next season to help my neglected patch out? I appreciate any thoughts.

 

[GSMChris]

Could you perhaps run some petiole or soil tests and then plant a cover crop in the aisles to regenerate the soil?

 

[VinesnBines]

Since they were pruned last Spring, I'd go forward as normal. Clean up the weeds, prune, get back on your spray regime. What varieties? Did you see any disease? If possible, remove the dried up clusters in case there was any black rot.

You can have the petiole testing done but I wouldn't worry about that unless you see signs of some deficiency. I don't think there should be a problem unless there was a severe fungal issue. If you don't normally need to amend the soil, you shouldn't need soil testing.

I was injured in the middle of August so my vines were only sprayed twice afterward . I was unable to keep the weeds out of the vines and couldn't harvest the entire crop. I have a lot of clean up this winter and I need to train my vines to higher wires so I know what you are facing.

 

[CTDrew]

Thanks for the ideas. I will do a soil test this fall as my state experiment station does them free. I don't normally do much by way of amendments usually anyway but it's probably good to check. I didn't see any disease but I will be sure to clean up the left behind clusters.