semigreenthumb
Newly Registered
Posts: 4
Joined: Sun Apr 15, 2007 10:43 pm

5th year grape vine...no grapes!

I've had a grape vine for 5 years and still has not produced any grapes. I've tried a variety of prunning techniques from heavy to light. Any suggestions?

opabinia51
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Posts: 4659
Joined: Thu Oct 21, 2004 5:58 pm
Location: Victoria, BC

The trick that I have heard and use is to prune the vines to the third bud each fall.

I tend to like to have really rich and healthy soils around all my plants but, I've heard that grapes like the poorest soil possible.

Any other ideas out there?

semigreenthumb
Newly Registered
Posts: 4
Joined: Sun Apr 15, 2007 10:43 pm

Well the vines are in a mixture of clay and topsoil (but mostly clay). Lots of new shoots already. Should I leave them all or prune some back?

ynot
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Posts: 1219
Joined: Tue Sep 19, 2006 8:49 am
Location: USDA Z:5a Sunset Z. 41 IL

semigreenthumb wrote:I've had a grape vine for 5 years and still has not produced any grapes. I've tried a variety of prunning techniques from heavy to light. Any suggestions?
I don't know your location, But [url=https://www.extension.iastate.edu/Publications/PM1707.pdf]this[/url]may help.

If not, [url=https://www.google.com/search?q=growing+grapes&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a]Continue your search here.[/url] :D

Good luck.

ynot [img]https://img241.imageshack.us/img241/1939/u4jchinaec9.gif[/img]

Coneflower
Full Member
Posts: 22
Joined: Tue Sep 11, 2007 5:23 am
Location: Minnesota

I think I just had dumb luck with our grape vines. I bought three varieties a few summers back and planted them all rather close to one another alongside a chain link fence. The fence runs East and West and gets a good deal of sunshine. I have done nothing much to assist these grapevines. They have grown along the chain link fence about 20 feet now. We had a few grapes the first year, more last year and this year the vines were loaded. We have Red, Concord and White/Green grapes. I wish I had planted all Concord as I love the taste of those.

We did nothing to fertilize them. I dug up a small bed when I planted them about 4 feet x 1.5 foot. I used some compost I purchased from a local compost recycling place to amend the soil. That was about all I did for them.

I didn't water them any more than the usual rain fall at any time. I have a few other viney plants that love that side of our house that all need seperating because they're choking each other out.

I can't tell you what the success quotient was with our vines. I've never pruned them at all. I know in a span of about 10 feet my son and I picked over 5 gallons of grapes this year - just on one side of the fence.

Now if I could only have the same results with our plum tree!!! That gave us fruit the first year on a tiny sized tree - my son picked off all the plums when they were tiny the second year - none and now none this year. Sniffle.

Coneflower
Full Member
Posts: 22
Joined: Tue Sep 11, 2007 5:23 am
Location: Minnesota

I went out today and noticed I still have quite a lot of grapes left on my vines. Some are near the top rail of the fence so they're a little harder to get off the vine. I'm including a picture of the "base" of the grape vines and some of the grapes. Yummy! They are delicious. I can't take credit for knowing a thing about growing them. My neighbor growing up had a wild grapevine in the backyard and we used to eat so many sour grapes every season we'd get a stomach ache. When I went to a friend's home, whose mother was growing concord grapes I vowed someday I'd have my own concord grapevine. They are great eating! I do battle with a vine I think is Belladonna?? that grows among my grapes every year. It's a weak stemmed vine with little red berries. Easily broke off but seems to grow at record pace.

[url=https://img249.imageshack.us/my.php?image=concordgrapesupclosees0.jpg][img]https://img249.imageshack.us/img249/448/concordgrapesupclosees0.th.jpg[/img][/url] [url=https://img514.imageshack.us/my.php?image=grapevinebaseqj6.jpg][img]https://img514.imageshack.us/img514/2176/grapevinebaseqj6.th.jpg[/img][/url]



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