Vineyard From the Beginning- Grapeman

[grapeman]

Hey all, new forum member with only a few kit wines under my belt, but sharp curiosity about vineyard planting. My father-in-law has 15 acres or so that's currently growing Christmas trees, but someday I expect my wife to inherit, and he's already said I can plant a few vines as an experiment this year.

I'm loving this thread, and it's building my enthusiasm! Thanks, Rich, for the effort!

-Rich

Welcome Rich! The way I am showing here is not your normal way of planting a vineyard. I am experimenting with a streamlined cheaper way of doing it and am documenting it along the way. That is half the fun of doing it.

 

[grapeman]

I have the new vineyard field all set to beginplanting when I feel the vines are ready- which will be very soon. To recap what has been done so far to prep the vineyard, first it was sprayed to kill the grass, then plowed and disc harrowed 5 times. Sunday I laid the plastic mulch. There were small gaps with no soilthrown on the edge. This AM the wind blew pretty good and began lifting theplastic. There were some places up to 50 feet where it came out of the soil. Ihad a helper help me to hold those spots down and throw some soil on them. Ithen adjusted the disc harrow to throw soil outward and recover the edges allthe way. 4 acres under plastic mulch in rows 10 feet apart - 21 rows 750 feetl long which will each be split in two for a total of 42 rows. It really does look pretty good.

I will get some pictures to put up soon of it with the plastic down. I have a market to do tomorrow

 

[ibglowin]

Cant wait for some pics!

 

[grapeman]

Hopefully the vineyard planting hasn't suffered too bad of a setback. We had a pretty decent day today, and then the thunderstorms came. At least we were on the edge of the worst cell so the hail was only pea sized instead of quarter to half dollar size, but it ain't over yet. When it stops I will go out and check the vines. It is too dark to really see right now, even though it is only a bit after 6:30. I have my fingers, toes, arms and even eyes crossed hoping the little vines I set out to harden off aren't shredded too badly.

 

[Deezil]

Dang!

We had some hard rain here yesterday that sounded like hail, but it was rain - i went out to check on the plants & seen the rainstorm had caught a few bees off guard, had some casualties on the leaves.. Wasnt hard enough to tear the leaves though, but i bet it was close..

Hope your little guys pull through the

 

[grapeman]

So far they look alright. It looks like they stood the leaves straight up to miss the heavy rain and hail. Time will tell if we are out of the woods yet, so to speak.

 

[grapeman]

The vines came through the hail storms alright. It has warmed to the 80's again. The main vineyard is in full bloom on a lot of varieties and all seems to be doing well. I had to snuff out some rose chafers with the last spray on Tuesday.

I decided today was nice and I had no markets so we would begin to plant the Marquettes and Leon Millot for that matter. We planted around 1250-1300 in about 4 hours. We took the next step with my new planting system. We got out the Water Wheel Transplanter, filled it up with about 100 gallons of water at a time and began planting through the plastic mulch we laid last weekend. Here are mixed pictures of the process. The smaller guy is my son Rick and the other one is Keith. So without boring you all any more here are some pictures.....

 

[tatud4life]

That tractor is pretty cool!!! Comfort, low to the ground, and still get your vine in the ground. Nice work!!!

 

[M1wino]

That's awesome! Love that you have your kids involved I hope mine are interested and willing when we get to that point. Good work!

 

[tatud4life]

I wish all of mine were that willing to help. I would have a huge workforce. Lol. Only one wants to help and it has to fit her busy schedule of sitting I her room all day.

 

[ibglowin]

Now that is how you plant a mess of grape vines! Tell Rick "mangia, mangia!"

 

[Runningwolf]

Rich, very interesting pictures, thanks for sharing.

 

[Corley5]

That's a good way to do it

 

[OilnH2O]

Rich, it's really fun to "watch." No, amazing. Will be a great documentation of your ideas.

 

[grapeman]

To put the field into perspective, each Row is made up of two individual rows with a road break in the middle and the whole thing with a road the length of it all the way around and in the middle. Each one of the rows is over a football field long. It is almost 3 miles total distance to walk all rows once each.

 

[Deezil]

It is almost 3 miles total to walk each row once.

Definitely puts it into perspective

 

[BobR]

Grapeman,
I have been trying to grow Concord grapes for the past three years, but have not had much luck. Each year I get a lot of cuttings, but before I can get them out in to the ground, I lose most of them. I am in central Illinois and usually get my clippings in mid-March. I put them in peat moss in the plantable fiber/peat pots. This year I planted over 110 clippings and ended up with about 30 – 35 that I was able to plant. Is there anything that I can do to increase my success rate? I retired over a year ago and was hoping that this grape growing thing would be a good retirement hobby. Of course around here, the weather, squirrels and deer have other plans. We haven’t had a good rain since last summer. Warm winter with a couple of light snows and hardly any rain this spring. Squirrels are forever trying to dig my new plants up; in fact they did last year. This year I put mesh around the plants and have used cayenne pepper to keep them away.

Bob

 

[grapeman]

Bob, sorry I took so long to respond. It has been hectic lately.

With a variety like Concord, I think the best bet for expansion would be to just buy dormant bareroot vines. In quantities over 50, you can get them for a little over a buck a vine. They have nice root stores and get the vines off to a better star.

That being said, if you want to increase the rooting rate, make sure you callous properly before setting them in the pots. Most of them that callous will root and grow. Keep them with the root side on some 80 degree heat for two weeks and then root the ones that callous.

 

[ibglowin]

Sorry if this was asked/answered earlier in this thread I did some looking but didn't see any mention of how this vineyard will be watered. Do you have a drip system setup now, in the future?

 

[grapeman]

Mike I use the MN Watering System - AKA natural rainfall. I may regret it later, but if it is needed I will use drip which I can install later. There is a brook 20 feet away at the northwest corner of the vineyard.

One of the advantages of the black plastic mulch is it keeps the moisture in the root zone better in dry weather.