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Too few grapes, too much vegetative growth

14 years ago

My Zone 10 vines are 3 years old, planted on a western slope with excellent drainage and receive 6-8 hours of direct sun per day on average. I am growing Flame and Thompson table grapes, and Zinfandel, Cabernet and Chardonnay wine grapes. I prune leaving 8-10 buds and the vines are trained on a single cordon system. My problem is that although the vines are very healthy and don't suffer from viral or insect problems, I get too much vegetative growth and too few grapes. The soil has a lot of organic compost tilled in but no inorganic nitrogen or blood meal has been added. Is the addition of inorganic, phosphoric acid the answer? Are organic sources like bone meal effective? Am I missing something else?

Comments (3)

ramona
14 years ago
How old are the vines? If they are not mature, then you won't get too
many grape clusters in the first years. If the vines are mature usually too much leaf growth is a sign of too much nitrogen in the soil. Get your soil tested. You can easily add amendments to fix the too much nitrogen proeblem. The thing that I find surprising is that you only get 6-8 hours of sun per day?

Is your climate extremely hot such as desert? and you are deliberately
keeping the vines out of the sun?

In my vineyards our vines are planted so that we get continuous sun
throughout the day. I would not plant grapes where the vines did not
get continuous sun or in somewhat shaded areas.
seam
Original Author
14 years ago
My Zone 10 table and wine grape vines receive 10-12 hours of sun in the Summer and 8-10 hours in the later part of the Fall and Winter. How old do grape vines need to be on average to be good producers and does the age requirement vary by variety?
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boizeau
14 years ago
Pruning to 12 buds is pretty severe. How far apart are the vines in the row? If you have crowded them closer than 6 feet, they will grow over and shade one another.
Vinfera grapes can be either Cane or spur pruned, and the total bud count should be closer to 24, not 8-10

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