The Mountain Grapevine: Tips on muscadine planting and trellis installation
If you plan on purchasing hundreds of grapevines from a nursery, be aware that most nurseries require a one year in advance order so they have time to propagate them for you. Buying a few vines for a backyard vineyard does not. Also note that most grapevines sold by big stores in the mountains with garden centers do not sell cold-hardy grapevines. Such grapevines usually die from winter kill in a season or two.
Once you have your grapevine plants in hand, begin the process of planting them. It is ideal to plant your grapevines in the spring so that they have all summer to get established before winter. We have also learned that if you plant them in the fall properly so the roots are deeper than 4 inches they will winter over just fine. I have experienced no winter kill of freshly planted vines using the following method. Muscadines should be planted 20 feet apart. Use locust posts if possible (they are hard to find in some parts of the country).
Setting up your trellis posts 20 feet apart. Plant your muscadines about 18 inches from the locust post. I have tried using the traditional method of holding up the trellis wire to the post using staples. Pounding staple into a locust post can be tough. Bent lots of them! I find that drilling a 5/8-inch hole in the post provides better support and maintenance for trellis wire. Staples tend to come loose from posts long term and encourage splitting of the top of the post which accelerates deterioration of the posts.
Dig a hole 1.5-feet deep. If you have red clay, use a 3/4" diameter rebar rod or pry bar to punch a hole thru the clay in the bottom of the hole to the soft crumbly soil beneath the red clay. This provides the drainage needed to keep the vines from dying due to root rot. Add a shovel of gravel to the hole to provide a coarse filter keeping the good soil from flushing down below the clay layer.
Fill the hole to within 4 inches of the surrounding vineyard surface using a 50-50 mix of the soil removed from the hole and a really rich potting soil or compost. Use a trowel to punch a hole big enough in the middle of the mixture fill to accommodate the grapevine roots. Remove the Muscadine vine from the pot. Set the bare roots into the trowel hole and pack it down. The plant roots should be at least 6 to 8 inches deeper than the surrounding soil layer of your vineyard. Add mulch around the young vine but do not allow the mulch to cover the trunk of the vine.
Slowly water the freshly planted vine with about one pint of water. Add a 1-foot tall wire cage around the vine to keep the rabbits from eating your young vine. Stake the cage to the ground to keep the wind from blowing it over. Alternatively, add a bamboo/wood training stick tied to the 5-foot-high wire of your trellis with the base of the training stick next to the vine. After the first frost and the leaves fall off the young vine, cover the trunk of the vine with about 8 inches of mulch.
Use the wire cage around the young vines to contain the wood chips/mulch. Do not use T-posts for your vineyard. The cold metal will cause your young plants to winter kill.
After the last frost in spring, pull back the mulch in the middle of the hole to expose the small trunk of the dormant young vine. It may look like a small dead stick at this point or actually show some buds starting to swell. Leaves will start growing within a week or so after you uncover them.
As the vines grow, remember to cut off all but the longest/healthiest canes to promote rapid growth of the remaining cane up to the trellis wire. Repeat this process for year two in the vineyard. Cover as much of the young grapevines as possible with mulch. If a small cane or two sticks out of the mulch it is OK. Most muscadine plants will grow about 12 inches the first year. They should reach the trellis wire by the third year.
Muscadines are typically grown on a high wire cordon trellis. It is typically 5- to 6-feet-high and is used for grapes that have a growing habit common for muscadine grapevines. It is used to support vines with moderate vigor growth and on moderate fertile soils. The end of the row anchor post trellis structure is one we developed here in the mountains. This structure works well as long as you have no rows longer than 200 feet.
The curves/contours of the hills make longer rows nearly impossible, thus no new for the more expensive complex end post trellis structure you see in most vineyards on flat land. When your grapevine gets up to the trellis wire, make sure one of the cordons rests on top of the closest post to keep the trunk bending as it gets older and heavier.
Chuck Blethen is a Madison County vigneron, author, lecturer and co-owner of Jewel of the Blue Ridge Vineyard & Walapini Nursery. He is the VP Public Relations for the French Broad Vignerons of WNC. He can be reached at Chuck@JeweloftheBlueRidge.com or 828-606-3130.
This article originally appeared on Asheville Citizen Times: The Mountain Grapevine: Muscadine planting/trellis installation tips
