Grape problems

Hello all. Five years ago I planted varieties that were suitable to my environment. So far I have not pruned them and they are quite unkept looking. I also pulled wild grapes out of nearby trees and trellised them also. So far I have no grapes. The purchased varieties get covered in rust every year with this year being the worst. The wild grapes grow like crazy but never produce. I have read that many wild ones only produce male flowers. I had hoped to correct this by planting cultivated grapes in between the wild ones. I have considered grafting but haven’t attempted as of yet. I love grapes and would love any help I can get.

Hi Scott, how much sun are your vines getting?

The last picture gets around seven. The others, maybe five.

It looks like the wild one that grew so much is on the edge of pasture, possibly its getting excessive nitrogen, which causes vegetative growth but not fruit production, you could try adding phosphorous to just outside the dripline near the trunk, good source of Phosphorous is fireplace ash (only use ash from untreated solid wood though, plywood contains toxins, and treated wood has arsenic).  If the problem is excessive N you can also mulch around the trunk and dripline with wood chips to sponge up the N.

Scott Stiller wrote:The last picture gets around seven. The others, maybe five.

That may be too little sun for fruit production,  you may need to take down some of those lovely trees in the foreground.

For the vine with rust you may want to get more airflow to the base, vines like to be high off the ground, which is why they climb, climbing high allows airflow around their lower trunk, which deters moisture borne issues like rust and mildew. Long story short, pruning the leaves at the base of the vine will increase airflow and maybe deter rust from occurring.

I was afraid you’d say that. 😂 I fully intended to prune the grapes I bought this winter. The wild ones are insane growers but not sure why. I use zero fertilizer on the farm. One of those was pulled from a tree top around fifty feet away. I had to wait an extra year for it to be long enough to reach my Pre made trellis. They all flower and what appears to be small grapes quickly fade away.
Your help has been very appreciated but I’d love to know more if you or anyone else can help.

😁 pruning might be a big part of the answer as much as I hate to say it, vines seem to love to be pruned, but your biggest problem is most likely the lack of sun.

One idea I'd like to float you, is making a taller trellis like 16-20 feet tall, letting the vines climb higher to get more sun, and then just prune all clusters of grapes  that are out of your reach while they are still green, the leaves higher up will charge the grapes lower down... as I type this I realize this is adding quite a bit of labor 😜 but I think it would be an interesting alternative to taking down trees...


...you could also coppice the trees behind, so as to not kill them, and harvest the wins for basketry, garden stakes, etc.

Hope you have some luck and yummy grapes this next growing season.

Bonne chance!!

I'm no grape expert but I've been tending a 40+ year old concord vine here for about 10 years, if you have any other specific questions I'll do what I can, very happy to help any way I can.

I also have to say I think its pretty cool you're working with the native grapes on the area, sounds like they have some amazing vigor,,  probabky would make great rootstock.

The rootstock is the reason I’ve been thinking about an attempted graft. I have minor success with tree grafts but grapes look difficult.