Home >> Home & Garden >> Planting Grapes

Planting Grapes

Grapes are frequently prized fruitproducing plants in the home garden. Theyneed room in which to grow; they need annualand heavy pruning if they are to produce manyfruits; they need spraying and fertilizing. Inmost areas, home-grown grapes arc not difficultto grow, but they do need some sort of trellisor support. The smaller the garden, the lessopportunity to grow grapes.

They can be divided into 3 general classes asfar as cultivation in the United States is con-cerned. Vitis vinifera is the European grape,many varieties of which are grown in southernEurope. In the United States they can be grownonly in Calif., the Northwest Pacific Coaststates and to some extent in Ariz. They can notbe grown successfully elsewhere, but in thosestates they are almost the only ones grown, forthey arc superior to our native American grapesand their many hybrids.

The second great group of grapes is derivedfrom the native V. labrusca or Fox Grape,native to eastern North America. There are many hybrids of this, some of them crosses withV. vinifera. One of the most popular of the V.labrusca hybrids is 'Concord', widely grownthroughout the greater part of the country eastof the Rocky Mountains and especially in thenorthern and northeastern United States.

The third group of grapes derived from V.rotuntlifolia, the Muscadine Grape, is grownonly in the South where they will produce in theclimate there and other grapes will not. Conse-quently, the home gardener selects the varietieshe chooses to grow from one of these 3 groups,depending on the part of the country in whichhe lives.

Grapes prefer a sunny well-drained soil.Most of the commercial grape-growing areas inthe East are located near large bodies of waterwhich reduce the advent of frosts in the earlyfall, and give the fruit a chance to ripen fully.Areas near the Great Lakes, in Ark. and Mo.arc in this category. Frost "pockets," or lowspots where early frosts occur, should not beused for planting grapes. Fortunately they willgrow on a wide range of soils.

Propagation

Many grapes are easily grown from hardwoodcuttings and are then on their own roots. Thehome gardener can easily do this or he can layerstems on the ground. However, itis unfortunate that in many areas of thecountry, especially on sites of older vineyards,various diseases and insects take their toll ofgrapes by feeding on the roots. Recently therehas been much work done in ascertaining whichrootstocks arc "resistant" to these problems,and some excellent resistant rootstocks havebeen produced by various state and federalexperiment stations. Popular varieties are thengrafted on these so-called "resistant" root-stocks, with the result that the vines are farbetter able to grow in areas where disease andinsect pests injure or destroy "own-rooted"types. It probably pays most home owners toplay it safe and obtain varieties which have beengrafted on resistant rootstocks.

Such plants should be watched carefully, forshoots from the roots if allowed to developwould produce grapes usually inferior to theclone grafted on them. All shoots coming fromthe rootstock should be removed; a rule tofollow in growing any kind of grafted stock.

In New York at least, one of the best of theresistant rootstocks is `Conderc 3309', but othersare undoubtedly available in other areas. Thelocal state experiment station would give thelatest information on this score.

Planting

One-year-old vines are the ones usually planted either in the spring or in the fall, but,if planted in the fall, special care might be takenin northern areas to mound the soil about thebase of the vine to prevent them being "heaved"(which see) out of the soil by alternate freezingand thawing winter weather.

Vines are usually planted about 8 ft. apart,and cut back to about 2 buds. A mulch mightwell be placed about the plant but no fertilizershould be used at planting time. One shouldremember that grapes are very susceptible toinjury from overdoses of fertilizers or chemicalsused in weed control. Extreme care should betaken in applying these materials.

Trellis

Grapes must have a means of support. Theold-fashioned grape arbor was one method ofsupplying this, but there arc so many otherornamental vines now available that if an arboris used in the garden, a vine more decorativethan the grape is usually selected. Grapes arceasily grown on a wire trellis consisting of 2wires, attached to sturdy posts about to ft.apart. One wire should be about 3o in. abovethe ground, and the second about 36 in. abovethe first.

The vine is trained to a single stalk with abranch trained each way on the 2 wires, oftenreferred to as the 4-arm Kniffin System. Thewires should be about #9 but the top wirecould be # to or tt. Although there arc othermethods of training grapes, this is by far themost popular system and the easiest one to usefor the home gardener.

Pruning

This is best done in winter or very earlyspring before the sap begins to flow. If thepruning is done late in spring the cut ends will"bleed" profusely and, although there is noevidence to prove this is harmful to the vines,certainly it does not seem to be desirable if itcan be avoided by pruning while the vines aredormant. Pruning when the vine is in leaf justremoves so many food manufacturing organsfrom the plant and this is decidedly harmfulwhen done at this time.

Grapes arc borne on shoots that grow frombuds on 1-year-old canes. The whole idea is toallow just enough of these to develop to producethe number of grapes that the vine will reason-ably support. If left unpruned, the vine will getvery woody, clogged with dead wood, and willproduce far too many small, poorly-developedbunches of grapes. To maintain a vigorous vine,reduce the old wood to a minimum and replacethis with young canes.

Grape pruning: The single-stem, four-armKnifTen System.

vine. Fewer buds should be retained on a weakvine than on a strong one. The 4-arm KniffinSystem has been described above. The pruningof the 4 "arms" or branches from the trunkshould be done in such a way that these shootswill all be of last year's growth.

The number of buds to be retained on eacharm varies with the variety, its vigor and its age.Theoretically, this has been worked out in thisfashion. Accurately weigh the 1-year-old canesthat are removed in the pruning operation.Leave 3o buds for the first lb. of prunings andto additional buds for each additional lb. ofprunings. This can be done several times if onewants to become proficient in judging theamount of pruning removed. It has beenestimated that between 3o and 6o buds can beleft on 'Concord' vines.

The most desirable canes to he left should heabout the size of a lead pencil in dia. and shouldoriginate as close to the main trunk as possible.It is desirable also to cut a small spur near thesebranches to about z buds. This is the renewalspur and it is branches from these spurs whichwill be selected to remain on the plant thefollowing year. if the vine then has 2 lbs. ofprunings of I-year-old canes, approximately40 buds should be left, divided among the 4branches or "arms." These branches should befirmly tied to the wires of the trellis. No furtherpruning need be done until the following year.

There are other systems of pruning. The"Umbrella" system is one in which the vinesare trained upright directly to the top wire andthere the satisfactory number of shoots areselected to train downward to the lower wire.Another system has to do with a trellis composedof 2 wires in the same plane 21 in. apart andabout ft. high. Each of the 3 systems isadvocated at some grape-growing area in theUnited States. The local state experimentstation will always have recommendations for the proper method for the vines grown in one'slocal area.

Pruning must be done carefully and thorough-ly each year in order to keep grape vinesproducing good crops and from becomingovergrown.

Harvesting

Grapes grown in the home garden should notbe picked until fully ripened on the vine. Thisbrings up the problems in some areas of birdseating the berries before they are picked. Wehave been very troubled with this situation, butfinally corrected it merely by throwing a largepiece of saran cloth or netting over the 6-ft.trellis, covering the vines from ground to topon both sides. In this way, the grapes receivenormal amounts of sunshine and air and one cancheck the ripening process. The cloth is putover the 2-wire trellis about 3-4 weeks beforethe fruits normally ripen. This is another goodreason for growing grapes on a simple 2-wiretrellis, for this is very easily covered, whereas alarge arbor would not be.

Insect Pests

Like other fruits, grapes require that a specific schedule for pest control be followed in orderto produce a profitable crop. Early in the seasonflea beetles cat the buds, grape plume mothcripples the buds and cane girdler cuts off thenew shoots. A dormant spray with insecticide#44 kills the eggs of the plume moth andcontrols the grape scale and the cottony maplescale. Sprays of insecticide # 9 control the leaf-eating insects and the grape tomato gall whichmakes globular galls on the leaves and stems.Japanese beetle, rose chafer and the light-lovingbeetle have a strong liking for grape foliage.Insecticides # 9 and # 37 give control withoutexcessive residue.

Grape phylloxera, which is primarily a rootaphid, nearly prohibits the culture of Europeangrapes on their own roots. In America, Ameri-can varieties or others grafted on them aregrown. Spraying with insecticide # 15 helps tocheck the gall-making form on the leaves. Themost important insect pest of the fruit is thegrape ben y moth. The first generation eats theleaves and buds and the second and thirdgenerations eat the berries. When preparing topupate they cut and fold parts of the leaf toform a shelter. A single worm may infestseveral berries. Careful spraying with insecticide# 9 or # 37, especially when the berries arcabout half grown, is necessary.

Diseases

Black rot is a serious fruit disease althoughit is also present on the leaves and canes. In-fected fruit becomes hard and brown before itdries to the well-known mummies in which thedisease overwinters. Destruction of infectedfruit and sprays with fungicide # D just beforeand just after bloom are effective. Downymildew infections on the leaves are controlledby the above treatment.

A regular schedule prepared by local authori-ties in pest control should be followed.