I hope you are having a wonderful week! 

With this article, I want to reply to an email I received from Suzanna, one of the subscribers of My Grape Vine.  Suzana became a member way back in 2007 when I first started the website and blog and established a great looking vineyard.  Her question is about the use of a refractometer to determine the ripeness of grapes.

With the help of the Complete Grape Growing System, Suzana and her friends at St Mark’s Presbyterian Church will be collecting the fruit of their labor soon! 

To listen to an interview with the ladies, just click on the link below

http://www.stmarkspresby.org/archive/032509_ladiesvine.html 

Well done ladies!

Now, Suzana is thinking of buying a refractometer to help them determine the ripeness of their grapes, but she is not sure how to use this instrument.

Okay, so before I tell her how to use one, I am sure there are some readers that don’t know what a refractometer is and how it works.

A refractometer is an instrument that measures the amount of sugar in an aqueous solution.  There are various models available on the market - from digital to the traditional analog one’s.  It works on a basis of critical angle principle where light goes through a lens and prism, projecting a shadow on a glass reticle inside the instrument.

Without getting too technical - A sample of grape sap is pressed out on the prism and covered with the cover plate (the small perspex like thing on top of the refractometer). 

VERY IMPORTANT:  Ensure that there are no solids, like pips on the prism when you close the cover plate, otherwise it will break and you can throw away the refractometer.

The amount of sucrose in the sap, either reflects the light or pass it through the prism, and then shines the amount of light coming through on a scale inside refractometer. 

IMPORTANT: Because temperature plays a big role in this process, it is advisable that you get a refractometer that automatically compensate for the difference in temperature.  Although they are a bit more expensive, I really do recommend you get one of these.  For those who buy from Amazon.com, here is a link where you can order yours online -

Hand Held Refractometer with Automatic Temperature Compensation

When looking through the eye-piece you will see a white and blue (some black) area on the scale.  The line between these two areas on the scale is what the sugar contents of the sap is.

This scale is measured in Brix (°Bx)- 1 degree Brix corresponds to 1 gram of sucrose in 100 grams solution.  In the picture below, the reading is just below 17 on the scale.  This means that there are +- 17 grams of sucrose in every 100 grams of sap.  In other words; the higher the number, the more sugar there is in the sap.

Now, the question is:  At what Brix reading should I pick my grapes? 

Mostly, it depends on what you will do with your grapes.  For making wine, a reading of 22 and above is the best as this will ensure enough sugar for good fermentation and flavour.  As for eating, I would say round about 17 to 19 degrees is more than enough. 

The problem when waiting too long for the Brix reading to get higher, is that the berries become softer and loose it’s crispiness and chances of rotting becomes bigger as the sugar increase as well. 

The old trustworthy method of tasting the grapes alongside using the refractometer, will help you decide when to pick your grapes.

I hope you enjoyed this article and you will now know how to use a refractometer.

Take care and enjoy the rest of the week.

Danie

Find out why Suzana and thousands of other grape growers are successful

Join the The Complete Grape Growing System right now.

The Complete Grape Growing System is an online product.  All the grape growing info I have will be at the tips of your fingers within 5 minutes from now. 

You will not receive any physical product with your order. 

Suzana had some trouble with kids picking their grapes before they are ready.  Here is a sign she put up in her vineyard - LOL 

Loved it …….

Tags: best places to grow flame seedless grapes, how do i grow muscudine grapes, how to grow grapes, growing grape vines, grapes you can grow in ontario

Hope you are having a wonderful weekend.  After the previous blog post, I received quite a few emails about planting distances and row directions, but one that often pops up is the question about growing grapes in a pot. 

As I said in an earlier blog post; to grow grapes in a pot, is not the ideal way of growing a grape vine, but I do understand that, in the city, available gardening space is limited,

I will try to give my opinion of what to do and how to manipulate the grape vine to stay under control on a stoop or balcony, but first, here is an email and pictures from Alex.

Dear Danie:

I found your website while doing some research on grape growing.  I enjoyed your site, your newsletter and your “personal touch”.

Now for the rest of the story.  I have always enjoyed gardening and my hobby for many years was growing exotic tropical fruit trees when I lived in a house in Hialeah, Florida.  Now I live in an apartment in North Miami Beach, Florida but my love for plants has not diminished.

Last year on my way back from Europe, I bought a grape vine in upstate New York.  I never had experience with grapes and did not know if they would even grow in Florida, but I wanted to try it anyways and of course, hoping for the best.

Last July I planted it in a large pot on my balcony.  Unfortunately, I had to plant it on the North side of the property, so it doesn’t get the full sun.  It only gets some sun it in the morning and in the late afternoon.

The variety that I planted is “MARS”.  As you can see by the pictures, the vine is growing nicely and this year it has given me a small cluster. 

Last year I did no trimming at all to the vine at all, because I had no knowledge of it and that is why I started researching.  This year I will trim it, but I need your advice on what or how to do it.

It now has three or four canes coming off the main vine right at the pot about 10 inches from the soil as you can see on the photo. 

 I plan to cut all the canes off except for the biggest one so that it can become the main stem.  Is this appropriate?

Also, I do not know if the rest of the vine should be pruned using the cane method or the bud method.  Your comments on this will be greatly appreciated.  Because of the space limitation, I plan to prune it to where it only has 3 or 4 canes growing on the wires I have placed between the uprights on the balcony.

When would be the best time of the year for me to do this trimming?  Also, since I am brand new at grapes, I do not know when to pick the grapes that are now growing on the vine.  How can I tell when they are ready to pick.  Of course, this would be for table eating and not for wine making.

Again, I want you to know that I enjoy your newsletters and emailing with you and I thank you in advance for any help and information you can give me.

Alex

Okay friends, I will start by thanking Alex for the email and the pictures.  As he rightfully said; his grape vine is doing great - there are no visible symptoms of diseases or anything out of the ordinary.

Let’s quickly have a look at the variety he chose: Mars is a black/blue seedless grape with big berries (for a seedless grape) and grows quite vigorously (as you can see from the picture).  One known problem with Mars is, it takes some time to become productive - Alex, that is why you didn’t get any grapes last year, and only one bunch this year.  However, as the variety grows older, it will produce more fruit (good news for Alex).

The grapes taste a bit assiduous, so it’s better to leave it on the vine until it has fully ripened and the berries are soft - normally about two to three weeks before Concord grapes ripen.

As for pruning:  I did some research on the variety and found that, because of it’s vigour and fruitfulness later on, it is best to prune with spurs (bud pruning as Alex called it).  Easier said than done??

Okay, let me try to explain what to do:

If it was my grape vine, I would move the vine to the middle of the balcony (luckaly it is in a pot!), right next to one of the middle pilars and split the vine to grow to both the left and the right..  Why? 

When you look at the pictures, you will notice there is quite a long distance from the one side of the balcony to the other.  The little light hanging from the roof indicates that that pilar is the middle of the balcony (right?).  If you are to make a cordon or arm from one side of the balcony to the other side, it would be quite a long cordon!  Remember, we must always try to keep the “old wood” on a grape vine as few as possible, as the sap flow to ripen canes and grapes and to feed the rest of the vine is much slower in old wood.  The longer the cordon or arm, the further is it is away from the main stem and the slower the sap flow will be.

If you split the vine or in Alex’s case, use two of the existing canes to develop two arms (one to each side) on the middle wire, the distance for each arm from the main stem is only half the lenght it would have been - does this make any sence?

Because of the limited space Alex have, I would only devlop one arm to each side and prune spurs on the this arm.  These spurs will be the fruit barers and the place where new shoots develop in the future.  Remember that space is limited here and the vine will become too big for his balcony with more than one arm to each side.  If however you have a more space, you can develop more than one arm to each side.

The initial training of a cane on this wire is done in summer and then in winter (early spring), you need to prune a single cane on each of the two wires.  From these canes, shoots will develop and then in the next pruning season you can start to prune spurs from these shoots.  (For those of you who are members of the Complete Grape Growing System, refer to the pruning and training section - year 1 and 2)

Here is a picture that will explain it in more detail.

I hope this will give you more ideas of what to do when you grow a grape vine in a pot.

Enjoy the rest of the weekend.

Danie

www.my-grape-vine.com

Want to learn how to train and prune your grape vine the correct way?

Then join the hundreds of succesful grape growers using

The Complete Grape Growing System

The Complete Grape Growing System is an online product.  All the grape growing info I have will be at the tips of your fingers within 5 minutes from now. 

You will not receive any physical product with your order. 

Tags: aglianico grape vines, how do i grow grapes, how to grow valiant grapes, best grapes to grow in eastern ky, table grapes to grow at home

With the Soccer World Cup fever at it’s highest here in South Africa, and my farm workers on annual vacation leave, I took some time off with my family as well.  I traveled to a few places aroud our beautiful country and just enjoy all the visitors to South Africa and the great football.  I hope some the readers of my blog were here and would love to hear what your comments are - maybe break the rule, to never talk about anything else than growing grapes on this blog, and put up a post for this??  Great game by Spain yesterday!  I think it will be a cracking final on Sunday.

Anyway, now I’m back in business and back in front of my PC, bringing you some fresh grape growing info to start the second half of the year.  With that said, let’s look at planting distances and row distances for grapes.

Gardening space is normally a big problem for home grape growers, so they cramp three to four grape vines into a 10 squire feet area in their garden.  Of course this seems logical; they hope to get a bigger crop because they planted more grape vines, but unfortunately, this is where it all goes wrong!

Planting a row of grape vines or a vineyard, starts with proper planning.  Before you even buy the cuttings, asses the area where you will plant the vines and measure the length of the row you will construct.  If you plan to plant more than one row, then measure the width of the area as well.

During the first couple of years (year 1 to 3), grape vines that were planted with too little space between the vines, will most probably not show any stress or symptoms.  As the vines grow older, the rooting zone and the canopy area gets bigger and sooner or later the adjacent vines will start to grow into each other.

When this happens, the canopy of the vine will compact and prevent proper airflow and sunlight penetration into the vine.  Not only is this bad for disease control, but will also have a huge influence on the fruitfulness of the grape vine.

I’ve personally seen the effect this has on a grape vine.  One of my friends decided to plant his vineyard 1.2 (+-4 feet) between the vines x 2.8m (+- 9 feet) between the rows. At first the vineyard was doing just fine, but round about year five, the production of the vineyard dropped by almost one third and in year six, it dropped even more! 

We assessed the problem and decided that the problem was nothing else than unfruitfulness; the variety (Sugraone), he grew is genetically an unfruitful variety itself, which made the problem even worse.  He decided to removed every other grape vine in the row, changing the planting distance to 2.4m x 3m (8ft x 9ft).  The next season, the vineyard produced a normal crop and since then went on to become one of his top producing vineyards on his farm.

Now you may ask; “Then what is the best planting distances?”  To answer the question, you will have to look at how you will train and prune the grape vines; how vigorous the variety grows and if you will use tractors and implements in your vineyard.  For varieties you prune with spurs, I would recommend the absolute minimum between the vines to be 1.2m to 1.5 m (4ft to 5ft) and for cane pruned vineyards 1.8 to 2m (6 to 7 feet).   The reason why I recommend a greater planting distance for cane pruned vineyards, is because it takes up more space on the canopy wires and we usually prune vigorous growing and unfruitful varieties with canes.

As said earlier, the distance between the rows depends on the way you will cultivate the vineyard and your variety so you will need to know the width of the tractor or spray pump and add about 15 to 20 % for the movement of the implements in the rows.  If you will not be using tractors and other implements in your vineyard, the same rule as for planting distances applies to row distances.

What is most common planting distances for grapes?

I would recon it would be 8 to 9 feet between rows and 6 to 8 feet between vines giving you round about 600 to 800 vines per acre.

Here is an email I received from Judy:

First of all, thank you Judy for the email.  You have inspired me to write this article so here is what I think you should do.

1st: 101′F is no problem for a grape vine, they will adapt to these conditions easily.

2nd:  You will plant only one row, so the distance between rows is no problem

3rd:  The varieties you will grow are Concord and Thompson and both these varieties are cane pruned (long bearers).  Thompson Seedless itself, is a variety that is known for it’s vigour and unfruitfulness, so if you read what I’ve said before, I would recommend a planting distance of not closer than 6 to 7 feet. 

I know this is bad news for you, as you will have to make new planting holes, but rather do it right from the start than to have a row of grape vines that does not produce a proper crop.

Just to show you how we lay out our vineyards before we plant the posts and vines; her is a picture of one of my vineyards.  You will see the chalk lines on the ground; this is where the the canopy posts will be planted.  The planting distance I will use is 3m (between rows) x 2m (between vines).

Right, so I hope you guys have a learned something new from the article and again thanks for reading my blog and supporting the effort I put in.

Good luck to the Netherlands and Spain for the final match on Sunday!.

Cheers for now, and I will talk to you soon.

Danie

www.my-grape-vine.com

 Remember, once you planted your grape vine, it will be part of your life for many years to come;  so doing it right the first time is important!

The Complete Grape Growing System is an online product.  All the grape growing info I have will be at the tips of your fingers within 5 minutes from now. 

You will not receive any physical product with your order. 

Tags: pruning grape vines, grafting grape vines, how to grow valiant grapes, how to grow chinese magnolia grapes, grape vine trellis

With this article I want to talk about grape vine grafting.  This is quite a common question among new grape growers.  The reason I think why so many people want to know how to do grafting, is because they planted the wrong variety when they started out.

Deciding on the right grape variety to grow in your area, is probably the most important decision you as a grape grower will take.  I will stick my head out and say, that your grape growing success depends on this decision.  Choosing the wrong variety for example in cold climates, can result in loosing the grape vine through frost - yes, some varieties are more cold hardy than others.  Disease susceptibility from variety to variety also differ, if you live in a climate with lots of rain during the growing season, it would be inadvisable to choose a variety that is more susceptible to downy mildew or powdery mildew. 

Luckily, if you have chosen the wrong variety, there are a few tricks up the sleeve to “change” the grape vine into the variety you prefer/want - it’s called “grape vine grafting”.

Grape vine grafting is where you take some tissue (called a scion), whether it is a cutting or just a bud, from the desired variety and unite it with your existing variety.

There are quite a few methods grafting, like bench grafting, field grafting, green-to-green grafting, chip budding and so on, but the most effective and probably the easiest of them all, is T-budding or also called shield budding.

For T-budding to be successful, you need well developed DORMANT canes from a disease free grape vine.  The canes are normally pruned in winter, after enough cold, so the canes will be in full rest and then stored in a plastic bag in a refrigerator (not a freezer).  Ensure you choose healthy canes, that from the exterior of the grape vine - not those that didn’t get enough sunlight during the growing season.  The thickness of the cane should be more or less the diameter of a pencil - don’t use slender cuttings and canes with closely spaced, small buds.

At the beginning of spring, as soon as sap flow within the vine starts, it is time to graft the the new scions on the the old grape vine - we call this time of the year ”slip barking” - this means that the cambium is actively growing, and the bark can be peeled easily with little damage.

The nice thing about T-budding, is that you can start a new grape vine on a 5 to 10 year old vine.  I wouldn’t recommend grafting on a 10 year and older vine.

With a sharp (and I do mean very sharp) grafting knife, cut a scion from the dormant cane (see the video below how it’s done - let me warn you, it takes some practice).

A vertical cut is then made on the stem of the old grape vine and should be deep enough to insure that the bark will separate at the cambium (this is where the term “slip barking” comes from).  A horizontal cut is then made at the upper end of the vertical cut to finish the “T”

The bark is carefully slipped from the stem by spreading the flaps alongside the vertical cut - this will expose the cambium.  The scion is then placed in the “T” and taped with a rubber band or grafting tape.  Care should be taken not to tear the flaps of bark in the process of spreading them and ensure you tightly wind up the grafting tape.

If the bark does not slip easily, this indicates that the stock is not in active growth and the process should be conducted later when active growth has resumed.

Take a look at the following two videos how it is done.

Good luck and happy grape growing.

Let me take you by the hand

and share with you all my grape growing secrets!

Join the Complete Grape Growing System today

Join the Complete Grape Growing System Right Now

The Complete Grape Growing System is an online product where you can download all the information about growing grapes.  You will not receive any physical product with your order.  For a once-off payment of only $47.95, you get instant access to all the grape growing info you need to succeed.

Tags: how to plant grape vines, how to start a grape vines, grape vine pattern, i heard it through the grape vine, grape vine swags

It’s been a while since I posted on my blog, because I took a short break after the harvest season.  Well, I’m back with some new posts and some new tips on growing grapes.

Those of you who have followed my blog posts since last year, will remember that I uploaded some pictures of Jacques’ grape vines in 2009.  With the help of the Complete Grape Growing System, Jacques established a beautiful wineyard in his backyard - one he can be proud of.

A week or two ago, he send me some more pictures of what the vines look like this year.  The vines are still young, but you can see the amazing results he got.  Here are some of the pictures from last year and this year. 

Compare the pictures to one another and see what can be done!

At the end of the post, I will give you and Jacques some tips on what to do next.  Enjoy …

2009 Pictures

2010 Pictures

Jacques’ email to me:

Hi Danie, I wanted to send you some pictures of this year’s vines. Last year you posted my vineyard on your blog and said some very nice things about it, but there were no grapes on the vines. You did say that the grapes will come next year and you were right again. This year’s vines look nothing like last year’s vines. The season is young and the heat and rain is yet to come but for now in South East Louisiana my vines look great. I can’t wait for harvest but for now I’ll work it into the summer and look forward to the fall harvest.

Your Friend

Jacques

The Grapes!

Jacques, first of all, I must congratulate you on a job well done - the vines look great!

Now for some tips on what to do next:

1. Remember what I teach in the Complete Grape Growing System; although the vines are well developed, they are still young and cannot ripen a full crop yet.  Limit the number of bunches to not more thean 10 - 12 per vine.  Your vines will develop the cordon (arms) this year and need enough energy to that.  The bunches hanging against each other are the first ones you want to remove to ensure proper ripening.
2. Prune the canopy on the sides, where the shoots hang down, so there will be proper airflow into the vine.  Those that are half way to the ground, can be pruned 8 to 9 inches from the canopy wires.
3. I see you did remove some leaves - great job, just remember that new ones will develop, so keep doing it.
4. Lastly, keep your spray program up to date, as you mentioned that the raining season is on it’s way.  Downy milldew and powdery milldew is now your greatest enemy - watch out for these diseases.

Once again, great job Jacques.

For those of you have similar pictures, I will be more than glad to post them as well.

Take care and talk to you soon.

Danie - “The Grape Guy”

To get the same results as Jacques did, you need to do it right!

Let me take you by the hand and walk with you every step of the way.

Join the Complete Grape Growing System Today

The Complete Grape Growing System is an online product where you can download all the information about growing grapes.  You will not receive any physical product with your order.  For a once-off payment of only $47.95, you get instant access to all the grape growing info you need to succeed.

Tags: best grapes to grow in eastern ky, how to grow grapes master gardener, grape vine pattern, grapes that grow well in maine, grape vine care

I hope you are having a wonderful weekend - mine sure is great

How many times have you wondered what the key elements for having a great vineyard are? 

This is really an important questions, as there is much more to growing grapes, than simply putting a cutting into the soil, watering it and hoping for the best. 

The video below will show you the 4 key elements to being a successful grape grower and outlines what The Complete Grape Growing System shows you in detail. 

What more can I say?

Al four of these key elements TOGETHER makes you a great grower.

So, if you are ready to show your family and friends, and more importantly yourself,  that you can be a successful grape growers, then click on the button below and invest a very small fraction of what it will cost you if you do it wrong.

Remember, once you planted your grape vine, it will be part of your life for many years to come;  so doing it right the first time is important!

See the bottom of the page for more details

Enjoy the rest of the weekend and I really do hope to see you on the inside of the Complete Grape Growing System!.

Cheers, your friend in grape growing.

Danie

The Complete Grape Growing System is an online product where you can download all the information about growing grapes.  You will not receive any physical product with your order.  For a once-off payment of only $47.95, you get instant access to all the grape growing info you need to succeed.

Tags: how to grow seedless grapes, how to take grow of wine grapes, table grapes to grow at home, grape growing, how to grow grapes

They developed a pruning method, where only a few old canes are removed during winter to keep the basic structure of the vine under control.  The method or style of pruning a grape vine changed quite a bit since then, but the basics of keeping the structure of the vine as small as possible, remains until today.  However, the most important thing they discovered, is that a grape vine will produce the best crops if it is pruned, EVERY YEAR.

Why?  Without pruning a grape vine, the structure of the vine will get bigger and bigger every year, pushing the most active growth to the very end of the vine.  Have you seen a grape vine climbing up trees? 

An “out of control” grape vine produce lots and lots of flower cluster, but seldom produce good quality grapes to wine or table grapes and in the end, no grapes at all.

What most new grape growers don’t know, is that a grape vine produce grapes from buds that was laid down the previous year – in other words, the buds on a green shoots during this year’s growing season, will be the fruit bearers for the next season!

Although there are many reasons for pruning, the 4 most important one’s are the following:

     1.  To develop the young grape vines:   

I cannot stress this enough!  The key to having a productive grape vine one day, starts with the training and pruning of the young vine.  If you grow grapes commercially like I do, you need to get that young grape vine in production as quick as possible and the only way this can be achieved, is knowing how to prune and train that young vine.

This is really the starting point of having a successful, productive vineyard – no matter if you grow one grape vine or a thousand, it is essential that you prune and train the young vine the correct way.

2.  To maintain a proper balance between growth and fruit bearing: 

Incorrect pruning or even no pruning at all, will result in thousands of buts to open in spring.   At first, this will look quite lovely, but eventually, these new shoots will be under-developed and will for sure produce less quantity and quality grapes. 

What not many grape growers know, is that when a bud open in spring and reveals a new shoot, this shoot grows from food stored in the vine the vine during winter and not from nutrients in the soil.  Only when the shoots are about 2 to 5 inches, the roots of the grape vine become 100% active.  Obviously, the more shoots there are, the less food there is for each shoot to develop during the early stages of shoot development – which by the way is the most important stage.

So you haven’t pruned the vine, and it still produced good shoot length, despite the fact there are thousands of new shoots on the vine.  The next critical stage in the development of a grape vine is flowering and fruit set.  During flowering, the grape vine is under a tremendous amount of stress, as the grape vine needs more and more nutrients to maintain the proper physiological activities within the vine.  Once again, it is quite obvious that the more flowers there are, the less nutrients per flower there is – the result; the grape vine will naturally aborts the flowers to save itself and in the end produce strangely grape clusters with low quality grapes.

      3.  To maintain a proper crop size:

Over-cropping is probably the biggest mistake new grape growers make, as they try to grow as many grapes per grape vine possible.  Over-cropping will not only delay the ripening process by a week or two, but will also influence grape quality.  

The more grapes there are on a single grape vine, the more nutrients and basic elements like potassium is needed to maintain a proper balance between fruit development, fruit ripening and keeping the physiological processes intact - this is also the reason why having too many grapes per grape vine, will result in poor colouring of the grapes.

In the end, to produce insane crop sizes, you need to find the point where your grape vine produce optimum number of grape clusters, without negatively influencing the quality of the grapes.

      4.  To maintain a proper grape vine structure:

The last, but for sure not the least reason why we prune our grape vines, is to develop and maintain the structure of the grape vine.

Most grape vines nowadays are grown on some sort of supporting object.  Whether it is a pergola, wired fence or trellis system, the maintenance of the structure of the grape vine in this supporting object is very, very important.

Keeping any grape vine in shape is impossible without proper pruning during the dormant season.  There is also something known as “summer pruning”, which I will explain how to do in a later article. 

Keeping the cordon (arms) of the grape vine in shape, will not only allow sunlight to penetrate the vine, which on the other hand is needed for disease control and fruit ripening, but will also make future pruning, a breeze.

I hope you catch my drift with this article, as without pruning, or let me say, proper pruning, you will most likely fail to have great quantity and quality grapes.

Learn how to prune and train your grape vine from the comfort of your own home!

Join The Complete Grape Growing System Today!

The Complete Grape Growing System is an online product where you can download all the information about growing grapes.  You will not receive any physical product with your order.  For a once-off payment of only $47.95, you get instant access to all the grape growing info you need to succeed.

Tags: how to grow valiant grapes, grape vine training systems, grapes you can grow in ontario, how to make grapes grow better, how to grow grapes in florida

Bunch sizing, as mentioned before, is an import part of preparing your grape crop for harvest.  This is not so vital for wine grapes, but for table or eating grapes it is absolutely imperative that you know how big the bunches should be.

As we are entering the final stages of berry development, just before colouring, the berry sets out about two thirds of the final size.  Off course this means that during this stage, you must know exactly what to do, to maximize the berry size, and one of the methods you should consider is to make the bunches smaller.

Not only will smaller bunches improve berry size, but will also improve colouring, disease control and also makes the harvesting and handling (packing) of the grapes bunches much easier.

If you look at the picture below, you will see a variety called Sundance Seedless.  This is an early/mid season, white seedless variety that naturally produce large bunches.  If we do no size these bunches, the bunches will weigh in access of 1.2 kg and the berry size on these grapes will most probably end up being 13 to 17 mm. 

By just sizing the bunches, we actually decrease the crop size, but will increase the berry sizing.  Hopefully, if everything goes as planned, the size bunches in the picture below, will around 600 to 800 grams, making it much easier to pack into cartons and also to handle.

The actual size of the bunch above is just larger than the width of my hand.  Some varieties like Red Globe, Thompson Seedless (Sulatan), we size the bunches even smaller.  I use this method to size my Flame Seedless and Crimson Seedless bunches as well

The best advice I can give you for knowing what size you should make your grape bunches, is to experiment with your own variety to find the size that suites your needs.  A rule of thumb is to use the width of your hand and ad about an inch.

This tip will help you produce the best grapes in the neighborhood and make your neighbor envy your grape vine! 

If you need a COMPLETE proven system to help you succeed, then join the Complete Grape Growing System right now - CLICK HERE

Take care and happy grape growing my friend.

Danie

www.my-grape-vine.com

To Learn Even More About Growing Grapes,

Join The Complete Grape Growing System Today!

The Complete Grape Growing System is an online product. 

For a once-off payment of only $47.95, you get instant access to all the grape growing info you need to succeed.

Tags: grape vine swags, how do i grow grapes, how to grow grapes master gardener, growing grape vines, how to grow seedless grapes

This is a neat little trick you can use, if you are trying to get a new grape vine growing in an established vineyard, which by the way is not easy to do.  Why?  Remember that the older grape vines will over-shade the young vine and preventing proper sunlight to reach the vine.  The root system of an established vine, will have reached deep into the soil by now looking for food and water.  Therefore, the watering or irrigation of an established vineyard differ from that of a newly planted vineyard, so you will have to give the young vines water on it’s own - for the home grape grower, this is fine, but if you have a farm full of grapes, this is practically impossible.

For those of you who didn’t read the article back then, here is the link:  http://www.my-grape-vine.com/blog/layering-grape-vines/ (this link will open in a new window)

With this article, I want to give you an update on how that specific grape vine is doing.  Never mind the weeds, it was sprayed yesterday  LOL :-).

In the picture below, you can clearly see the cane coming from the established vine, going into the ground and then up again.  Notice how well the new vine developed and that I started to create the frame work already.  Yes this was done in one single year using the training methods I teach in the Complete Grape Growing System!

An added bonus is, that I will be picking a few bunches of grapes from this grape vine as well!  You can see these bunches are still small , but I promise they will be worth picking in about 2 months time.

I will keep you updated as the season progress, to see what the grape look like in the end - hold your thumbs!

Take care

Danie

www.my-grape-vine.com

Wouldn’t you also like to get these results?

Then Secure Your Membership To The Complete Grape Growing System Right Now for only S47.95

For only $47.95, you get instant access to all the grape growing information you need, PLUS get some bonus videos of how to prune and train a grape vine.  The Complete Grape Growing System is a digital product.  You will not receive any physical products.

Tags: how to grow grapes in florida, how to grow grapes master gardener, how to grow grape vines, grape vine swags, how to make grapes grow better

She wanted to know what those numbers on a fertilizer packaging means.

With this article, I will show exactly what they mean and how you can calculate, precisely how much of a certain fertilizer mixture you must apply, in order to get the right amount of an element in your soil.

The numbers on a fertilizer mix like for example a 10:10:10 fertilizer, probably the most common of all, means:

10 : 10: 10

N  :  P :  K

10 parts nitrogen (N), 10 parts phosphorus (P), 10 parts potassium (K)

But that’s not all!  On many fertilizer packages you see a 4^th number in brackets; for example

2:3:4 (27)

From what we have just learned, we will have

2 parts nitrogen (N),  3 parts phosphorus (P), 4 parts potassium (K)

The fourth number (27) - in brackets - is the total percentage (%) of nutrients in the mixture.  

So we have a total of 9 parts ( 2 + 3 + 4) nutrients in that mixture, that ads up to 27% of the total mixture.

In other words; for every 100 kg of fertiliser there will be a total 27 kg N, P, K in the mixture.

                                            2          27

the nitrogen (N) is                  9   x     1      =   6     kg N for every 100 kg of fertilizer mixture

Therefore, two ninths of 27 kg, or 6 kg, of every 100 kg of mixture will be nitrogen.

As for a 1:0:0(40) mixture, 40 kg Nitrogen will be added to the soil for 100kg fertilizer and no P, K

I hope this makes sense? :-)

With this formula, you can easily calculate how much of a certain fertilizer mix you must apply to add a certain amount of N:P:K to the soil.

To Learn Even More About Growing Grapes,

Join The Complete Grape Growing System Today!

For a once-off fee of only $47.95, you get instant access to all the grape growing info I use on my own farm, plus some bonus pruning and training videos!

The Complete Grape Growing System is an online product.  You will NOT receive any physical products with your order

Tags: how to grow valiant grapes, how to grow grapes master gardener, how to make grapes grow better, care for grape vines, transplanting a grape vine