On this page I will cover how to plant live vines and how to start cuttings to plant in the future.
Grapes are incredibly resilient plants. They are easy to start and hard to kill once they get established. It can be as easy as sticking a cutting in the ground and giving it ample water and you have a new vine, but we want to ensure success when we plant a vineyard, so we need to take some extra steps to make sure you have healthy vines.
First, a caveat, legally you should not buy vines or cuttings from out of state. The WSDA frowns upon those that transport vines from out of state and especially across the border from another country without the proper paperwork. They do have the power to rip out a vineyard if they find you have done something illegal. I haven’t heard about any vineyards being destroyed but have heard of large orchards in Eastern Washington getting cut down for illegal plantings. Buy from a reputable nursery or get cuttings from a reputable vineyard instate. You can buy vines from out of state. But mostly that is for commercial operations. Pretty much all vines you need can be obtained from instate sources these days.
Let’s start with planting a vineyard first and then starting a cutting afterwards.
There is some prep work involved with planting. As I mentioned before, you should have your site cleared and ready to go at least several months before you are ready to plant. You should have your soil tested and amended before you plant. It’s also best to have the drip irrigation set up before, but not as critical since we want to plant our vines when it’s still fairly wet outside, like in late winter or early spring. Generally you want to have the irrigation in place by June, unless your vineyard is small enough to hand water.
Usually in the summer or fall of the year before you plant, you should order your vines, especially if you want grafted vines. Good nurseries will have a stock of grafted vines on common rootstock available almost every year. Oddball vines might need to be special ordered and grafted. Washington state is one of the last places in the world where phylloxera does not exist so we can plant vines without the protection of rootstocks. Eastern Washington is too dry and sandy for the root louse to survive and Western Washington the vineyards are spread out too far so if it infects one, it is hard for it to spread. Oregon and California were once this way, but the bug has eaten it’s way through those states. Let’s just say for now you are probably safe, but if this is a commercial operation, I wouldn’t take the chance.
Your vines will come bare root which means they were dug up out of the ground. Dirt washed off them. Roots trimmed and then bundled up and put in a bag with some sawdust. You have some time to plant them, especially if it’s cool. But the vines should be heeled in to some dirt or kept in the fridge until you are ready but no more than a couple of weeks and planting as soon as possible is the most desirable thing.
Vine Spacing
One of the questions you need to answer is how far apart should I plant my vines. In a large vineyard this is usually determined by the size of your equipment. Generally 6-7 foot wide rows. The trellis should be the same height as the width of the rows to maximize sun exposure. The big question is how far apart should your vines be? I have grown vines anywhere from 3 feet to 8 feet apart in rows and for the majority of vines that you want to grow for wine in Western Washington state, I would say the ideal distance is 4 feet. I planted my vineyard at 3 feet and it feels too close. The vines get crowded and each vine could give more fruit. If you grow an especially vigorous grape like Sauvignon Blanc or Gewurtztraminer then you might even want 5 feet apart. Also a lot depends on your roostock choice.
Here is my guidelines. Low vigor vines on rootstock, you can get away with 3 feet. Medium vigor vines on roostock (like pinot noir) then 4 feet. High vigor vines on rootstock then 5 feet. If you forgo rootstock then 4 or 5 feet. Some hybrid vines like Leon Millot and Marechal Foch are monsters and you will need 6 feet, but I don’t recommend planting them.
Digging the hole
This seems simple on it’s face but can be complicated. Laying out the rows and measuring where each vine goes is important. I used a long piece of plastic twine where I measure off 3 foot distances with a marker and then pulled the string tight and used one of those street spray paint markers to put a small dot of paint where I was going to plant. Then I would go back and use a drill with a bulb auger to dig a nice hole. Then another pass with some general purpose fertilizer in each hole. Then walk along the holes and plop a vine into each one and cover up the roots. Get the water on them right away if it’s dry. In a small vineyard you can simply use a hand trowel or post hole digger to dig a nice big hole for each vine.
Grow Tubes
When I started growing grapes in the late 1990s, grow tubes were all the rage. There were going to make your vines grow faster and get you to your first crop 1 year earlier than old methods of growing without them. In reality, I never saw any benefit from grow tubes like that. Having said that, I do think they are a must here in the Puget Sound if you have rabbit problems. Rabbits love new vines and will eat all the leaves from your vines and they will never get a good start. For that reason alone, I recommend them. Another use for grow tubes is protecting the young vines from herbicides. Tubes like the one shown above can be expensive for a large vineyard, costing a dollar or two in bulk. Plastic ones can be re-used for several years if you have several areas you are going to plant in succession. What I recommend is that you track down some of the paper ones that look like milk cartons or are overruns on milk cartons. They will last a year or two before you pick them up and throw them away. They are much cheaper and easier to recycle when you are done.
Once the vine is being trained up to the first wire, then you can remove them, and the rabbits can’t eat the vines.
Grass/Weed control
I am going to take a somewhat controversial stance on grass control. Grass is the arch nemesis of new vines. It will suck up all the available water and starve new vines of nutrients. You need to keep it away from your vines for the first couple of years. On a large scale this can require a lot of hand work. Lots of string trimmers and hand hoeing. After all these years, I just end up using Roundup. I know many people think it’s awful, but the amount of work it saves me. Diesel burning in my tractor. Time spent in the vineyard. I spray once in the spring under my vines before there is any green growth and it keeps weed suppressed for months. In a small vineyard, hand hoeing or whatever tools you want to use can makes sense. Later in the year, some weeds start to come back but I don’t want to spray an herbicide around my growing vines, I use an electric string trimmer on low speed.
There are tractor mounted weeding devices that are quite effective, unfortunately they were out of my reach for my budget. One of the best known is called a Weed Badger and if you have multiple acres, it might be something you want to invest in. It mounts on the side of the tractor and spins under the wire
Once you have that all set up, your vines should grow quite nicely for the first 2-3 year before you get a crop. Next chapter is how to train your vines the first couple of years for maximum success.