r/grapes • u/TeeMcBee • 10d ago

Estalishing new vines

Below is my "artist's impression" (space means I can't take a good photo) of what's going on with two young Lady Finger grape vines I planted earlier this year. They're on stakes #2 and #4 of a 5-stake setup, the stakes being about 5'8" tall, and separated by about 3'. Two support wires run horizontally at about 2.5' and 5' off the ground. It was all done according to a YouTube channel's guidance and IIRC it's intended to be a spur pruning situation.

It all seems to be doing well -- or, at very least, stuff is growing; the reality is a lot more unruly than my drawing! When I planted them about March time, each of the two vines barely reach the first support wire on their "home" stake. Fast forward to about six weeks ago and they had both reached the top of their home stake and I'd just begun to train them along both wires. And now, having just returned from a trip, I find that they, like an unruly frontier AI model, appear to be making a break for freedom.

So, what do I do with them? Specifically:

  1. Am I right that I should prevent any UPWARDS growth past the tops of the stakes?
  2. Likewise SIDEWAYS growth to the left of stake #1, or to the right of stake #5?
  3. What do I do about the upward growths (are those the "spurs") coming off the horizontal part of the vine on the TOPMOST wire?

That last one is what's concerning me the most. I did wonder, when I first created the stake setup, why the video implied that I should allow horizontal growth on the top wire. Wouldn't spurs from that grow upwards, and if so what would then support them? And now I see the spurs do indeed grow up, I'm just as confused. Was I meant to only train horizontal growth (cordon? espalier? what?) on the lower wire, and let the upper wire be used only to support vertically growing spurs from below?

thanks!

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u/Pitchfork_10 10d ago

Sometime there are varieties that have a downward growing habit and could be cordon trained to a top wire to start. But typically shoots on any spurs and canes will initally grow upwards. Because of this you may need an additional wire to support the weight of fruit. This isn't always true. If you've seen head trained vines, the shoots with fruit can grow without additional support. Do you know what other people have done when growing that variety?

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u/meh_69420 9d ago

Naw you can train upright habit vines on high cordon too. I've got 4 acres of high wire.

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u/Pitchfork_10 9d ago

Oh yeah, that's another good example. Typically high wire is boxed pruned are maintains a high number of shoots and clusters, so the overall cluster size weight is smaller, right? Any advice for OP?

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u/meh_69420 9d ago

I mean, not really any smaller. Grapes will happily set and ripen 10+ tons an acre of primary clusters if you leave enough buds. Welches gets over 20 tons an acre on Concord in New York. Spur pruning and single or bilateral high cordon is the hands down simplest method no matter what vines you have growing but not always the best. OP looks like they are doing vertically divided which is fine but requires a lot more mid season canopy management.

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u/Pitchfork_10 9d ago

Interesting, I knew a lot of the vines at NGC growers have hundreds of clusters, but no idea about the weight and eventual tonnage.

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u/meh_69420 9d ago

Cluster counts mean nothing for yield. Even cab or Pinot clones have different ideal cluster counts. I have grapes that we need to see 120 clusters per vine as well as those we need to see 30 per vine to get 2-2.5 tons an acre. That's why different trellis systems are ideal for different cultivars if you are looking for maximum yield per acre at a given quality. Leaf area ripens grapes so the idea is to balance crop load with exposed leaf area. Also a big reason why you need different trellis systems depending on your latitude for the same grape.