Norton Harvest

Just a quick note, somewhat delayed.  We harvested the Nortons Sept. 21.  We got 26 pounds of grapes de-stemmed and sorted.  It took about 5 hours to de-stem them--may have to consider some mechanical means in the future when we get more grapes???  The total reading from the scope was just over 20.  I would have liked to have seen a little higher reading, but still pretty happy with this. The birds have mostly left them alone, which is great.  In sorting them, there was a little more damage than appeared on the vine just because they are so tightly clustered.  There were some grapes particularly in the interior of clusters that mummified.  Overall, though, the grapes were sweet, with deep, dark juice.  It is now in the fourth day in the primary and working well.  I did use Montrachet yeast as indicated by this recipe.

• 12-16 lbs Summer Grapes
• 1/2 to 3/4 lb finely granulated sugar
• 1 tsp pectic enzyme
• 1 crushed Campden tablet
• 1/4 tsp acid blend
• 1 tsp yeast nutrient
• Montrachet wine yeast

Pick the grapes when fully ripe. Wash, destem and crush the grapes in primary fermentation vessel. Strain enough juice to float your hydrometer, measure specific gravity and return juice to primary. Add sugar to bring S.G. to 1.088 and stir with wooden paddle. Add crushed Campden tablet, stir, cover primary, and wait 12 hours. Add pectic enzyme, acid blend and yeast nutrient, stir, recover, and wait additional 12 hours. Add yeast and recover primary. Punch down the cap twice daily for 7-10 days (until S.G. is 1.010). Strain and press grapes and pour juice into secondary. Top up and ferment under airlock 30 days, rack into sterilized secondary, top up and refit airlock. Rack again every two months for six months. Stabilize, sweeten if desired, wait 10 days for dead yeast to fall, then rack into bottles. This wine can be consumed immediately but will improve with age. 

I did get the sugar a little high, being unused to this amount of natural sugar in my grapes, so I started just about 1.090.  It should be have plenty of kick!

Niagara harvest

Seeing that the birds were going to have their way, we decided to go ahead with the harvest.  The reading on the refractometer was only 12 for the whole combined juice, which is way lower than I would like to see but it was harvest or lose them.  Still, it was the best harvest we have had, in spite of losing all of one vine to the birds. 

The grapes were gorgeous--large, heavy clusters.  By taste, I would have thought they were much sweeter than the instrument indicated.  I think they will make a good wine.  The low incidence of diseased grapes really made a difference.  I just wish the bird netting, which wasn't cheap, worked better.  I need to research a way to make it work more effectively.

We use this juice steamer to extract the juice on our green grapes and when we make juice from the concords.  It is a great instrument.  It delivers a clear, pure juice and really does a great job getting as much juice as possible from the grapes.  Although it adds some moisture to the end product, it still makes a very rich-bodied juice.

It holds enough grapes to produce about 3 quarts or better, depending on the quality of the grapes.  From the Niagaras, I will take 8 quarts to make 3 gallons and we will still have a couple gallons to make a white grape juice.

Norton--Cynthiana--Summer Grape

Call it what you will, it can make a very good wine, probably the best native American wine grape.  We're at the upper end of the area in which Nortons apparently can be grown, so when we ordered 5 vines 4 years ago from the St. Francois vineyards in Missouri, I was uncertain as to whether or not we would have success.  This grape requires a long growing season.

Well, they're growing just beautifully.  They have been slow to develop as vines, and a couple are still on the smaller side but all have produced beautiful, tight clusters of virtually disease-free grapes.  So far, the birds are mostly staying off them but I'm going to monitor them closely.  I did a sampling from all vines this morning, beating out the predicted high of 97 or better here on the first day of September, and got a reading of 14.8, which I thought was pretty good.
We're going to be gone for about a week in about a week, so a bit of a dilemma as to whether or not chance that the grapes will still be there when we get back or if I'll have to pick right before we leave and freeze the must.  I'll do the latter if necessary, since I hate to lose this good first crop.

Harvest Update

8-24-2011  Picked most of the DeChaunac and about half of the Frontenac.  DeChaunac were getting eaten by something, birds probably, and the Frontenac was looking pretty ripe.  Picked 15 lb. 5 oz. of just grapes.  This made about 1 1/2 gallons.

8-27  Picked all of the Aurore, of which there was little, the small couple of bunches of Cayuga Whites, 8 grapes from Moore's Diamond (birds got the rest) and some of the Niagara, enough to make about 2 3/4 quarts of pure juice.

All vines are covered, but birds, apparently, are still getting in at night.  I do not see them in there during the day and the electric fence is keeping raccoons out, so I can only guess that it is birds roosting and feeding there at night.
Nortons are ripening nicely, and the concords are getting good color though they still have a ways to go.

Getting close!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Frontenac

Grapes are getting close.  I tested several varieties that are soon to be harvested.  I used my economy refractometer.  Here are the results:
Niagaras:  11.6, 10.8, 12.6

DeChaunac:  13

Aurore: 13

Frontenac:  16

Aurore I won't be harvesting.  Niagaras and the reds I'll monitor closely.  I have netting on them and the electric fence up, but will still watch for scavengers.  It looks like Frontenac will be ready a bit before the DeChaunac, and I want to combine them.  I may have to crush the frontenacs and get the juice from them and save it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

DeChaunac

 

As you can see above, there is still some greater variation in the DeChaunac grapes.  Still, perhaps the end of next week I can pick the Frontenac and early next week perhaps the other reds.
The Niagaras are just beginning to get that soft, luminous glow that means they are ripening.  It will be a couple weeks before they are ready, though, as long as disease and animals don't start in on them.
The Nortons are just starting to show some color.  They're looking good and I should get a gallon off them this year--excited about that!

Nortons

 

 

I still need to put netting on the concords and the short row of Nortons.  I'll do that early next week.atten
We  attended the Wine Experience at the Iowa State Fair on Tuesday, as volunteers.  It was a lot of work but a great deal of fun as well.  We were glad to be able to help out.  There were quite a number of people who came through Grandfather's Barn and participated in the grape stomp.   I think we are quite likely to do it again.

Lots of stuff

What I Did:
     Canopy cleanup, put netting on one row, Sevin spray, prepared electric fence

Comments:
     It was a hot morning, but lots of work had to be done.  As you can see below, some critter has been attacking the seedless Concord grapes, which are beginning to ripen.

As you can see, this is an early ripening variety.  Note also the clear signs of anthracnose. This is the only plant I have seen the disease on this year, thankfully.  Maybe I'm beginning to get it under control.  In the photo below, you can see many grapes which had been ripped off the vine.  I suspect raccoon, though perhaps oppossum or, less likely, deer.  My money is on raccoons.  I also saw one of our other seedless varieties has been attacked, though it shows no signs yet of any color change.  They don't seem to have bothered anything else.  So, I decided to put netting on this row, since the birds have also been at some of the top grapes, and then string up the electric fence to discourage the mammals.

It will make canopy management a bit harder, but the grapes are too good this year to lose them to the raccoons.  I might even set up the live trap as well.

     I also took off quite a few low leaves and leaves on the back sides of the vines to allow better airflow and spray penetration.  As you can see in the photo above, though, the Japanese beetles do their own share of work allowing air through the leaves.  We think now the beetle onslaught was just delayed, as they are out in huge numbers right now.  So, I did a spray of Sevin.

I likely killed as many as 5000 beetles today.  They were really destroying some vines, and I couldn't let that go on.

9th week since bud break

What I Did:
     Spray with Sevin, Captan; open canopy; put in permanent posts on last row of Nortons

Comments:
     This was a busy week, spread out a bit.  The first thing I did was to install the new posts on the 3 Norton vines.  It was a very hot day to be digging post holes, but I made it through the job by about 12:30 and called it a day outside.  I knew it would be tough getting the vines onto the new lines, since the new ones are much higher than the old.  I should have done this early in the spring, after pruning, if I had been thinking right.  Doesn't always happen.  They look good now though, and I will retrain the vines next spring.  I also did some work on opening the canopy on the concords, though I need to make sure I do that before I spray.

New supports for the Nortons

     All in all, I'm very happy with the way the grapes look.  There is the smallest sign of disease I've experienced since introducing hybrid grapes.  I have only seen one grape that has split open resembling a PacMan character (signs of powdery mildew).  Every year this has been a problem, and these are the first to begin to show rot in late summer and the rot quickly spreads throughout the bunch.  Also very few birds-eyes, which would indicate anthracnose.

Some brown spotting on these seedless grapes

     We have been following the Japanese Beetle annual assault with a bit more interest this year, since it seems their numbers (fingers crossed!) are slightly down this year, so far anyway.  Is it a natural decline or possibly just due to the crazy summer we've had in which everything is slower?  Hopefully it's a sign of a change for the better.  Of course, there are still plenty of them around and they are making their presence known, as evidenced by the skeletonizing seen below.  It still amazes Kathy and I when we talk with people about them.  Many think we're talking about Asian beetles and are seemingly unaware of the Japanese beetles.

     They have also not attacked our red raspberries as much this year.  The reds produce two crops in a season, and last year I don't think we harvested a single berry in the early season.  The beetles got to them so much we just left them alone.  This year, the crop is very healthy looking and, again, though the beetles are present, many very good berries have been picked.

     The reds are not the only ones doing well this year.  Kathy found this little patch of black raspberries that have produced some of the biggest black raspberries I've ever seen.  I hope this patch spreads!  Our own domestic berries need some work, and we continue to be disappointed with their production and health.  Thank goodness for a great wild crop.

This photo doesn't do the berries justice--they are huge!!

     I don't know if I will make a batch of black raspberry wine this year, though.  We're going away for a week and by the time we return, there may not be much left on the bushes.  We'll have plenty for eating and pies, though.  Also, when I return it will be time to bottle some more of last year's wines, our DeChaunac and the Niagaras.  Can't wait!

Fifth Spraying

What I Did:
     Spray with Seven, Nova and Captan

Comments:
     Well, they're back.  We were gone for the weekend, and I figured the Japanese beetles would be making their emergence any day.  So far, the numbers are not overwhelming, but I'm not getting too excited--it's still early.

I took this photo on one of the prairie plants, since the Seven took care of all the bugs on the grapevines.  I fully plan to stay on top of them this summer, and see if we can make a dent in their numbers.  Not that we haven't tried in the past.  Maybe we have made a difference with all the thousands we killed by spraying and just by dumping them into soapy water.  I'd like to think so anyway.

I was glad it was a very calm afternoon, since the white clover is in full bloom, as you can see, and our honey bees are busy collecting nectar.  I wanted to minimize any drift and there was virtually no breeze.

Moore's Diamond

Grapes are looking good.  We did notice some spotting on a few and a bit of what I would call "rust" on some.  So far, though, I haven't seen any sign of grapes splitting open or the bird's eye sign of anthracnose.  I'm keeping fingers crossed.  On the De Chaunac, though, I did find some blotchy, bluish discoloration.  I saw this last year on some of them.  I'll have to keep track to see if the discolored berries have problems.

Purplish discoloration  on De Chaunac

Later in the week, I'll need to do some more canopy management, since the vines are really growing vigorously right now.

Fourth Spraying

What I Did:
     Removed some leaves on concords, sprayed with Nova and Captan

Comments:
     It was a calm, dry morning and had been 10 days since the last spray.  I removed some leaves from the Concord to help with the drying, since we've had so much rain, and to enable better spray penetration.  I could have done the same with the Niagaras as well but will work on those in the coming week.

     The grapes are looking good.  These are probably the biggest on any of the plants.  I think this is Frontenac though  it could be the Reliance seedless.  Clusters on many of the vines seem to be pretty loose this year.  Even some of the other seedless varieties, which normally have pretty tight clusters, seem loose.

     The young plants are looking good.  The first above is the re-growth of a DeChaunac and it's looking healthy.  The one on the right is a second year Cayuga White.  They are really growing tall already.

          In other parts of the garden, the sunflowers are off to a good start.  The ones on the right of the door to the blueberry house are volunteers mostly with planted sunflowers on the left side.

     Blueberries are really filling out and it looks like we'll have a decent crop after all, though not as good as some years.  They certainly are behind, though.  We have picked ripe berries by this time other years.  If they hold on, we could have a good number of pecans our our tree this year, too, far more productive than our "crop" of 5 nuts last year.  The currants are looking good, too, and I really need to study to see when to determine ripeness with those.  Our sour cherries are not as plentiful, and we lost one tree.  There are quite a number of sweet cherries but they all seem to have been infested with worms and thus are not nearly as enticing.  I'll need to spray those next year I guess.

Bottling Time!

What I did:
     Bottled Aurore, Blueberry, Sour Cherry and Black Raspberry

Comments:
     Though working with the vineyard is a lot of fun, the fruits of all that labor are what it's all about.  Or at least much of what it's about--I do enjoy working with the vines.  I bottled 4 gallons, 5 bottles of each type.  I'll give a little description of each.

Our Grumpy Bee label

      Aurore:  Our harvest was pretty slight last year, as one vine was in decline and disease had hurt the grapes, as well as bird attacks.  So I was probably fortunate to even get a good gallon.  And a pretty good gallon it turned out to be.  Nice and smooth, though a bit quick on the finish.  Very drinkable, but probably won't have a long shelf life.  Good clarity.

     Sour Cherry:  We had a good cherry crop last year, so this was the first cherry wine made in the last couple years.  Tangy, just on the edge of being a bit biting, I decided to add just a half cup of sugar to the gallon which smoothed it out nicely.  It will be a tasty treat in the months to come.

Here are the four varieties we bottled.

     Blueberry:  This was our first attempt at blueberry wine.  We have 6 fantastic blueberry bushes that are terrific producers, but I've never cared much for the thought of blueberry wine until I tried some recently and found it surprisingly good.  I did not add any sugar--it has enough sweetness on its own without having to add anything. It has a nice, mellow taste, nice aftertaste. The color is very similar to the cherry, as you can see in the photo above.   I'll see how a couple bottles go before I decide if I'll use any of my precious blueberries on wine next year.

     Black Raspberry: We had a great raspberry crop last year, between our own domestic berries and the wild ones, which had a banner year as well.  This one is much better than the last I made, which had a bitter aftertaste.  This one leaves you with a pronounced but not overwhelming black raspberry taste.  Kathy thinks it tastes like blueberries.  I did not add any sugar, so finishes dry as well though still has a natural sweet flavor.

Of course, tasting it as it is bottled is mandatory, not only to make sure it hasn't "gone bad" or needs adjustment, but also because it's fun!  Cheers!

Third Spray

What I Did:
     Spray with combination of Quintec and Captan

Comments:
     It was a bit of a windy day and very warm (94 degrees), which was a bit of a shock after spending last week in Northern Minnesota where we had the furnace on a couple days, but I decided I needed to spray anyway.  It turned out not to be too bad and the spray went on well.

Nice clusters on DeChaunac

     I did spray under and around the vines with Roundup yesterday as well.  It was calm and I removed any low growth around the base of the vines.  Weeds were really growing, though I had thought a couple weeks ago things were in pretty good shape in that regard.  I was wrong.

Flowers on Frontenac

     Some vines have produced a strong secondary bloom, and you can see the flowers in the photo above while other fruit have firmly set on.  The Concords are already close to needing some canopy management.  That may be necessary in the next two weeks.

     All the young plants seem to be doing well.  The Cayuga Whites, in their second year, show strong growth.  They aren't doing much horizontally but are really shooting up.

A Cayuga White, growing vertically

Late May management

What I did:
     Tied new vine growth, sprayed and fertilized

Comments:

     In the past week, the trees have finally fully leafed out, even the oaks and other nut trees.  It has been a very slow spring, but things are gradually catching up.  What is surprising is that, in spite of the cool weather, we seem to have had no frost damage on fruit from garden to vineyard to orchard.
     Vines right now are growing pretty quickly, quite a change from 10 days ago when new shoots were only about 4 inches long.  I had to tie up a number of young shoots, getting some nice-looking shape to some of the newer vines such as the Nortons.  I also trimmed base growth again and cut out some more dead wood.
     Kathy picked up a Niagara, which I put in place of the dead Aurore.  I cut back the other two vines that had severe die-back, though I should have been more careful with the DeChaunac, because I cut off more live growth than I should have.  Still, it is growing well now from the stump.  I put cages around the young plants.
     I used Mancozeb and Quintec in the 3rd spraying.  This will likely be the final application of Mancozeb and I will begin to use Captan in the next spraying.

Large number of clusters on Frontenac

     Grape growth has been spotty.  The DeChaunac will not have a harvest as good as last year, and the Concords and Niagaras are not as strong either.  The Frontenac, however, has the most robust production I've seen yet.  I need to look to see if I need to thin clusters.  As the grapes mature, I know there are always more grapes than I think in early season. We'll have to see if that is true this year.  My goal is to get vines healthier this year even if we harvest fewer grapes.

     I also decided to do some 10-10-10 fertilizing.  I think I have only given the vines fertilizer one other time. This is totally unscientific, since I have not had the soil tested.  We'll just evaluate their response to this.  The soil, for the most part, is really pretty poor--a lot of clay out there.

     As I did my spraying, I had to be careful around one of the bluebird boxes since, as you can see, there are some new occupants.  They were in eggs yesterday when I sprayed, and you can see eyes are closed yet.  A wren occupies one of the other bluebird houses, and she has almost flown smack into me a couple times since she waits until I am right next to the box before she departs.

     

Second Spray

Moore's Diamond, 4-6" shoots

What I did:
     Second spray (post-dormant), consisting of Nova and Mancozeb.

Comments:

     It was a bit of a breezy, cool day but 10 days since the last spray so I needed to get it done.  The worst thing about the wind was accidentally inhaling through my nose some nova dust.  I immediately went in and did a sinus rinse.  It was dumb not to take the precaution, and wore my mask after that.  I mixed 1 1/2 gallons, which was sufficient.
     It had been a very cool, rainy weekend.  We even had a fire in the fireplace on Saturday.  It cleared off Sunday afternoon, though, and turned cool with temps in the low to mid-30's.  Patchy frost predicted tonight.

DeCaunac

The grapes seemed to like it, however, as they really started to take off the past several days, probably trying to catch up to seasonal norms.  Most varieties still seem behind and there was more winter damage on parts of the vines than I had realized.  I did some trimming before spraying and removed some more dead parts.  I still have the 3 vines that need to be removed, though two have growth at the bottom and I will cut off and remove the upper parts.  I also trimmed away basal growth on most plants, though of course as I was spraying I spotted more I will need to remove.

New grapes on DeCaunac

The St. Croix is only in its second year but really put on the grapes.  I removed them and will continue to do so if more come on so it will continue to develop good root growth.  I also removed any grapes from the Cayuga Whites, which are looking good though one died off the upper part but has strong growth down below.

Cayuga White, 2nd year

I really love this time of the year with the vineyard, when the leaves just start to come on and the new grapes begin to form.  Midsummer is probably the time I like the least, when the Japanese Beetles are in full force chewing up everything, vines are growing out of control and it's too damn hot to hardly care!

It was interesting looking at the different growth patterns, which can be determined even in the early growth stages.

Frontenac

In the Frontenac seen above, you can clearly see the strong upward growth tendency.   The Concords seem to grow helter skelter, wherever they want.

A row of Nortons

The Nortons still seem like they could use another year of development before I try to harvest any.  I may let the largest two plants develop grapes and remove them from the rest, which look more like two year vines than 4th year.

First spray

What I did:
     First spray since dormant sprayings.

Comments:
     I did a spray with copper, mancozeb, nova and captan tank mixed.  This seems to me to be a bit of overkill, but I wanted to cover the bases.  I also did a spray on the blueberries with captan only.  Buds are just breaking out, some about 1/2 inch long .  I'll try to follow in about a week to 10 days.  Things are so slow this year, way behind last year.

Cleaning up, Decisions

What I did:  
     Cleaned up under the vines, evaluated progress

Comments:
     It was a nice, sunny day, upper 50's.  After being gone to NY for two weeks, I was sure the vines would be sending out sprouts and I would need to spray.  As the photo above shows, I was only seeing bud swell on most vines.  Three vines show no budding--two aurore and one DeChanauc.  The latter does seem to show some flexibility in some of the twigs and there is budding at the base of the plant.  At this point, given the disease problems I've had with aurore and the mediocre quality of the wine, I am thinking of replacing all 3 vines with something that is well suited to the cold climate and would be more disease resistant.  I was leaning towards a white, like LaCrescent, until I read about the Frontenac red.  It sounds like a distinct possibility and I think I'll order it.  Good cold hardiness, seems to make a decent wine.  I was tempted to try the Marquette after reading its description.  Then I read about the strong recommendation that malolactic fermentation should be undertaken and I backed off--don't feel I'm quite ready to tackle that.  So I think I'll go with the Frontenac (described here) and perhaps try to move the DeChanauc that shows a little life and see if it can eventually survive.

This is one of the solar endcaps I put at the end of the pergola.  Kind of cool at night.

Second spraying

What I did:
     Gave a second round of late dormant sulfur spray

Comments:
     It was a nice, warm upper 60 degree day.  I gave a thorough second coating of lime sulfur spray, with about 2/3 the strength of my original spray.  I sprayed heavily on the ground under the vines of the older plants as well, since I saw a number of dried mummies and rachises around them.  I need to spend an hour or so raking and removing as much of that as I can.  It will have to wait until May, however, since we will be gone for awhile. Some of the grapes are showing swollen buds, others nothing yet.  The Cayuga whites, one year old, are looking healthy and should all bud out.
Two days ago I watered the newly planted Frontenac Gris, with acid fertilizer.   We've been lucky to have several  very pleasant spring days in a row.  This is Iowa--that won't last.

Planting time

What I did:
     Planted the vines, added sulfur to increase pH
   
Comments:
     We got our 3 vines of Frontenac Gris the other day, then had to leave town so I left them in the shipping bag, then put them in some water yesterday afternoon after we returned home and planted them this afternoon.  The bareroot plants look healthy.   I was impressed with the description of these vines, so I'm looking forward to seeing what they can do.  Sounds like they are easy to prune and make interesting wines that, according to the University of Minnesota, present "aromas of peach and apricot with hints of enticing citrus and tropical fruits...unique and complex flavors make this an excellent grape for table, dessert and ice wines." http://www.grapes.umn.edu/gris/index.htmlrUnique and complex flavors make this an excellent grape for table, dessert, and ice wines.
I know the white fence is not your traditional  setup for the vines, but I will run extra posts along it and wire for the vines.  If I can figure out a better location for the fence, I'll move it and put in the usual post arrangement.
I also added some sulfur to try to lower the pH a bit in this row.  I'll test the soil again after the next rain, which could be tonight.

Round-up

What I did:
     I did an application of Roundup today.

Comments:
     No buds of any kind showing yet, only on the black currants.  So I decided to do an application of roundup, since it was mostly sunny though cool (low sixties).  I had to stop about 3/4 of the way through, though, as I became aware of bees all over the grass.  It has been really dry here, and we had a little sprinkle overnight and the bees are desperate for any moisture.  They were tonguing the mud under the vines.  I hope they were not hurt by my spraying.  I stopped until later in the afternoon, when the bees were no longer on the grass.  They were certainly out and about, though.
     I also tied up a few loose ends and noted several that I need to go back and trim a bit better.  Seems like I always miss some shoots the first time through.

pH testing

What I did:
     Used the pH tester to check the soil acidity for each row in the vineyard

Comments:

It's been awhile since I checked soil for pH, so I thought I'd see how things looked.  I used the rapitest pH meter.  First, you scrape away a couple inches of soil, then work up the soil for about 4-5 inches.  Add enough water and mix to create a muddy slurry.  

Then you insert the metal probe into the soil and wait about a minute to take your reading.  As you can see, the needle shows a pH of almost 7.  I am looking for a reading in the neighborhood of 5.5-6.5.  This reading was in an area where I will be planting the Frontenac Gris this spring.  I removed the Concords that had been growing there and perhaps they didn't do well since the soil needs to be more acidic.  I'll work some fertilizer for acid-loving plants into the soil, retest, and see how that looks.
My row-by-row results were as follows:
Row 1  Frontenac Gris                                                                      6.5-7 (almost 7)
Rows 2 and 3   Pergola (Niagaras, aurore, De Chaunac                     5.5-6, each row
Row 4  aurore, De Chaunac, Cayuga white                                        6-6.5
Row 5 Concords                                                                               6.5
Row 6 Reliance seedless, Frontenac, Cayuga White, Norton              6-6.5
Row 7 Nortons                                                                                  5.5-6

In all, things looked pretty decent. I realize this is only a pH test and I really know little about the composition of the rest of the soil and will look into what it will take to get it tested as well.

Last Week in March

What I did:
 2nd and 3rd week:
     Dug out 3 non-productive Concords.  Will replace them with Frontenac Gris.
     Trimmed the vines over 3 day period.  Severely cut back the Niagaras and Moore's Diamond, which were growing over the top of the pergola.  Last year they produced heavily, but the grapes up high developed rot quickly and are not worth the bother.
     March 29th (today):  dormant lime/sulfur spray.  I used a 6 oz to the gallon mixture.   I applied a fairly heavy spray.  Low 40's for temps, no rain predicted for 48 hrs.

Comments:

Some vines look dead, at least one aurore and one of the white seedless varieties.  I've been fooled before, but twigs broke off easily, clearly dead in the parts I broke off.  We also planted 3 Cayuga whites last year, compliments of our daughter and her husband, now living in the Finger Lakes area of upstate NY.  They look good.  I trimmed them back pretty severely and will not expect grapes for a year or two.

After trimming

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I also sprayed our blueberries with the lime/sulfur since we have had fungus problems the last two years with them as well.