Ep. 214 Backyard grapes: From vine to wine, juice, or snack | #GoodGrowing

Chris Enroth: 00:04

Welcome to the Good Growing Podcast. I am Chris Enroth, horticulture educator with University of Illinois Extension coming at you from Macomb, Illinois, and we have got a great show for you today. We are going to be talking about growing the grapes in the backyard. Oh, I love some fresh table grapes. But you know I'm not doing this by myself.

Chris Enroth: 00:25

I am joined as always every single week by horticulture educator Ken Johnson in Jacksonville. Hey, Ken.

Ken Johnson: 00:31

Hello, Chris. Do you prefer table, raisins, or liquid grapes? I have kind of liquid grape.

Chris Enroth: 00:38

I would say fermented liquid grapes. That I'm not really, like, I I'm not very good at tasting wine. I would say I can't distinguish all the different flavors or anything, but I I do often know the difference between, like, this is good wine versus this is not good wine. That's kind of my my balance of wine and things. So yes.

Chris Enroth: 01:03

How about you, Ken? Do you like table grapes? Do you like grape juice, raisins, fermented grapes?

Ken Johnson: 01:12

Table grapes aren't bad. I don't like raisins. Grape juice is good. Fermented grapes, if it tastes like grape juice, that's good. If it doesn't taste like grape juice, that's not good.

Ken Johnson: 01:21

So I don't I don't like dry wine.

Chris Enroth: 01:25

Oh, sometimes I love dry wine. Other times, I don't. It just depends on the day, I suppose. And, you know, raisins, are are they getting a bad rap these days? Because I grew up eating lots of raisins.

Chris Enroth: 01:36

Like, that was, like, a common snack for school, for for, like, all kinds of activities. I don't know if my kids know what a raisin tastes like anymore. I've tried to feed them raisins, and they look at it. They're like, what is this?

Ken Johnson: 01:51

Yeah. I'm trying to think. We don't I yeah. We always just kids had raisins in the house, but I don't know if care kids have eaten raisins, yeah, we don't Yeah. Like, a container full of them sitting around.

Chris Enroth: 02:03

Mhmm. Well, my wife is a she's a dental hygienist, and she said, boy, that's not good for your teeth. And so they've always stayed out of the pantry for the most part, even though I I still like them. I'll still eat them if I have them.

Ken Johnson: 02:15

There you go. Well,

Chris Enroth: 02:18

kids aside, I think a lot of folks you know, we do every once a week. We get questions about, you know, can I grow my own grapes? And frankly, Ken, that question scares me. There's so much to know when it comes to grape growing. So we have a special guest with us today to cover growing our own backyard grapes.

Chris Enroth: 02:41

So we have doctor Elizabeth Wally in Madison County, Illinois. So that is kind of the Metro East to St. Louis area. So Elizabeth, welcome to the show.

Elizabeth Wahle: 02:50

Well, gentlemen, it's a pleasure to be here today.

Chris Enroth: 02:53

Well, we are happy to have you. And I should add, Elizabeth, you are a you're a commercial ag specialist, with our commercial ag team. So you deal a lot with, those specialty crops that are grown for sale in a commercial sense. Correct?

Elizabeth Wahle: 03:10

That's correct. But by extension, I know how to grow them at home too.

Chris Enroth: 03:15

Mhmm. So we are really happy to have you here. Listeners, viewers, Elizabeth is an absolute wealth of knowledge. Everything from those commercial specialty crops to the backyard garden, from ornamentals, vegetable gardens. So, we're happy to have you to dive into maybe one of the topics that I am most afraid of here, which is grapes.

Chris Enroth: 03:38

Like I said, there's just a lot to know.

Ken Johnson: 03:40

Oh, start off. So we got a whole list of questions here. I'm gonna start off with those. So I guess first question is, what are some things if if somebody wants to grow grapes, what are some things we should consider before we put them in the ground or even buy them?

Elizabeth Wahle: 03:58

Well, you know, I'm gonna give an answer that I'm not really good at doing myself when, you know, standing in a nursery looking at a plant. But, you know, if I'm putting on my extension here, I would say for grapes, there's quite a bit of difference in disease susceptibility. And so, you know, when you're buying grapes, you really should take the time to look over, you know, the evaluation data on which ones are highly susceptible. Because, you know, a lot of homeowners, you know, unlike commercial growers, maybe don't have the expertise or, the willingness to regularly, you know, apply pesticides to control disease. And so I'm gonna say with grapes, probably one of the first things is make sure that you are getting something that reduces the amount of commitment you have with that particular crop in terms of pest control.

Chris Enroth: 04:51

That kinda reminds me, like, tree fruit in a way. People think they can put that in their backyard and just grow a tree fruit. But grape sounds like a very similar thing where, you know, you have to you have a commitment here for keeping because things wanna eat their grapes and want to infect your grapes.

Elizabeth Wahle: 05:07

Yeah. It's you know, anyone that's hung around with me for a long time says, you know, if we like to eat it, there usually is a lot of other things that like to eat it too, and and that's definitely the case with grapes. We have some core diseases. Fortunately, insect pests are not the number one concern. It really is disease.

Elizabeth Wahle: 05:27

And then when we get into the fruit being there, then we have to worry about all the wildlife that wanna steal your crop. Mhmm. Start now. Make a good decision on what cultivars you're growing.

Chris Enroth: 05:40

Well, I guess speaking in in line of those cultivars, I always get excited when I visit a vineyard. I'm like, oh, I could do this. Like, it makes me, like, want to do this. You know, they might let you taste some grapes. They might have some wine or something or grape juice that they've made, and it makes me excited to do it.

Chris Enroth: 05:58

But I would be starting from scratch. I would be a beginner. So in terms of, like, cultivars, varieties, is there anything that is well suited for a beginner? Or, like, for most of us, we're not gonna have acres. We're gonna be doing this against a fence probably in a backyard.

Elizabeth Wahle: 06:15

No. I, you know, I grow grapes, myself, and I just have four vines. That's all I have. It's it's enough. You know, I don't have acres.

Elizabeth Wahle: 06:24

And I grow, a Concord type because I absolutely love, you know, Concord grape. Like, most of us, we grew up with, you know, Welch's cooperative with Concord grape being the baseline for, you know, juices and jelly. So a lot of Americans have a cultivated palate for our American grapes that have that foxiness or that muskiness, you know, a little bit of a tang to it that we don't get with European grapes. And, you know, when I started, I really looked at, you know, what do I want? You know, do I want a table grape?

Elizabeth Wahle: 06:56

Do I want something that doesn't have seeds? Do I just wanna harvest an entire cluster? You know? And it only serves that one purpose. You know?

Elizabeth Wahle: 07:04

So you have that group of grapes that you could select from and looking for disease, you know, resistance. But I really wanted something that had more functionality. There are a number of grapes that you can select, and, I grow one called Sunbelt, and it's a more southern adapted concord type. But it can be used for, you know, jams and jellies and juice, and you can make wine out of it. So and it's fresh eating.

Elizabeth Wahle: 07:34

The only drawback for fresh eating is it has seeds in it. But because of its functionality, that's what I selected. And it's it's not, the most disease susceptible, but it's not the best, also. But it's within my range of what I'm willing to commit with those grapes. And so that's kinda, you know, how I look at it.

Elizabeth Wahle: 07:57

You know, how much commitment are you gonna have with? So if you go in knowing how much you're gonna, you know, control and really what you wanna use for them, I think that really kinda helps you out as a beginner. You know, if you just want table grapes, that kinda really reduces down your choices to what is out there that doesn't have seeds in it. That kinda limits your list, and then you can just start seeing, well, which one has the most, you know, the best flavor and the best disease, you know, profile, on there. And that that's kind of an easy start.

Ken Johnson: 08:27

So a lot of people I think this is a trend in in the horticultural trade is we're getting more towards smaller plants, container type plants. Are there any grapes that would do well in a container setting if you didn't have a lot of space to grow them?

Elizabeth Wahle: 08:43

Well, you know, on on just about anything, you can, you know, get something that doesn't have, you know, as much vigor and is is not as big of a vine. And that's some of the ratings that go with grapes, and so you'd wanna look for one, you know, that was a less vigorous vine that's not gonna be a monster for you to deal with. I will remind everyone that when you're in a container, no matter what, it doesn't stay in that soil or that, you know, the soil in the pot forever. So you always have to think about, you know, how are you going to get it out of the pot and change that soil. So one of the things that I always say when we're talking about food crops that we know, you know, are perennial in nature, don't get a pot that has one of those, you know, reduced neck sizes where it goes in.

Elizabeth Wahle: 09:35

You really want that straight out, so that when you lift the plant up and and get the soil off, you can, you know, get it out easily and put it back in. I've been stupid in my life. I I think as horticulturists, we can probably all admit that what makes us good at our job is we've done every dumb thing that could possibly be done. And I have done that. I have put pots in those beautiful, you know, vase shape that has the narrow and then you can't get it out, and you end up having to break the pot, you know, to get the plant out of it.

Elizabeth Wahle: 10:11

So that's my one comment is always keep in mind that, you know, we usually say every two years, you know, change the soil. You're probably not gonna wanna do it quite that often. But when you fertilize, make sure that you water very thoroughly to wash, you know, the salts through the soil as much as possible. So, the container you select and plan on where you're gonna place it so that it can climb because it is a true vine. It's gonna have to have some some something.

Elizabeth Wahle: 10:43

So whether you put it close to something for it to grab onto or whether you have a pot large enough that can handle the weight of a trellis that you put down in it, it's gonna have to have something to climb on.

Ken Johnson: 10:55

I know it'll it'll bury on on the cultivar and stuff, but how big would a, I guess, a typical grape plant get? Just so people have an idea.

Elizabeth Wahle: 11:05

Well, if I you know, we're just putting a standard one, I would say that they're probably, oh, maintained about five to six feet tall and probably cordons four feet either direction. So eight foot wide, five foot tall. And so, you know, if you were able to get a pot because grapes are actually rather deep rooted, so you're gonna have a restricted root system. So I would imagine that you might not be able to get it as large in a container, because of that restricted root size space, on there. But, again, you know, you really have to think about, the weight of the plant when it has a crop on it, for tipping over once it's, you know, in fruit.

Elizabeth Wahle: 11:53

So it it's obviously going to have to be attached to something, to stabilize it if you've got it in a container.

Chris Enroth: 12:01

So we're focusing on Illinois, and we're just before we started recording, we were, like, going back and forth reminding each other what zones we were all in. And I was like, oh, really? I'm in zone six b or a? Like, oh my. That like, everything's changed a little bit.

Chris Enroth: 12:16

But for for the most part, I I know there might be some folks who they might travel to Europe and they see a particular type of grape. They wanna, you know, grow something like that over here, but European grapes aren't really necessarily hardy in our part of the world, are they? Like like, is climate a a big deal when selecting these grapes?

Elizabeth Wahle: 12:36

It is. You know, I when we look at grapes, we we have I'm gonna start with two big groups. So we have the American grapes that are very adapted to our climate, and we have some American grapes that are southern grapes. But European grapes are are definitely a more Mediterranean climate and not adapted to our extreme winter. So it's not our our spring, summer, and fall.

Elizabeth Wahle: 13:01

It's low winter temperatures. And so most of what we call vinifera, so Vitis vinifera, or the European Asian grapes, are not reliably hardy here. Now we have something like, Cabernet Franc, which we can grow in the far southern part of the state. So there are a couple of varieties that what we call slightly hardy, but most of them I would rate as tender. And so that probably is, you know, one of the, mistakes, growers make is, you know, they'll go someplace like California.

Elizabeth Wahle: 13:37

They'll go up to the Finger Lakes or the Great Lakes, you know, where they have those moderated climates, you know, where they can grow those types of grapes. And then they bring them back home and plant them, and the first winter kills them, you know, to the ground, and they lose them. And one of the things with, you know, vinifera grapes, is they're all grafted. Our European grapes are susceptible to the American phylloxera, which is an insect pest, that kills them. And so all vinifera grape worldwide, actually, are grafted on to American grape rootstock to protect them from the root phase of phylloxera.

Elizabeth Wahle: 14:17

And so, you know, a lot of people, you know, they'll plant their vinifera grape. It'll be killed to the ground, and what comes back up is not what they planted. It is the rootstock. And that's why it comes back because it is adapted to our climate, and they end up with, you know, a rootstock type of grape.

Chris Enroth: 14:36

So if climate, you know, it plays a big role, I also think about soil. You know, it's Southern Illinois. You know, climate and soil, I think, probably play a big role. And I went to school down in Carbondale, you know, Southern Illinois, rolling hills. But red clay, like heavy clay soil, how how big of a a role does, like, soil or topography play in grape growing?

Elizabeth Wahle: 15:01

Well, I I usually relate that it is air drainage that is very important, you know, for spring freezes and so forth because there's quite a bit of difference in temperature. You know, when we're on a commercial setting, I can easily say, you know, if you're looking for a site, you need, you know, rolling topography. Well, if I come to my home, it's flat. You know? We're talking to homeowners.

Elizabeth Wahle: 15:26

A lot of times, that doesn't even come up as an issue because there's no choice. It's like, where's the best site on my property to plant a grape? And so, you know, when you're looking at the best place on your property when you're not looking at planting acreage, full sun is is number one. A well draining soil, and I don't mean sharp drainage, just that they don't like to have wet feet. And so, you know, I have grapes growing on fairly heavy clay, but it is not a wet site.

Elizabeth Wahle: 16:00

It doesn't sit in water, so it does well. So, a well draining site. Deeper soils are better than shallow. You know, we have some places in the state that have, you know, like, hard clay pans or fragipans, that have a restrictive zone, and the grapes don't grow as well if you can't get the roots through it, but a deeper soil. But I'm gonna say full sun and well drained, not wet feet, Like most fruit, they're very similar to most fruit crops that what they like.

Ken Johnson: 16:31

Alright. So if we've got our type of grape that we want, table, wine, what have you, we've got we've picked out our disease resistant cultivar, hopefully. We've got our location, full sun, well draining. When is the best time of year to go plant our grape plants?

Elizabeth Wahle: 16:51

You know, grapes are very much like all plants. You can plant them any time of the year as long as you're providing good conditions, except for probably when the ground is frozen. That's kinda rough. But having said that, you know, it's always best to plant most plants in the early spring. And this is because temperatures are still moderate, and they're starting to warm, and there's usually sufficient moisture, And the pest pressure has not, you know, build up strongly, at that point, and it kinda gives you a running chance.

Elizabeth Wahle: 17:28

The second time to plant would be in the fall again as temperatures are starting to get cooler at night. The plant's not under as much stress. If you miss those windows, then you always have to think, is this plant under more stress? So instead of planting, you know, you know, in early April or sometime during April, and I don't go buy my plant, you know, until June 15, what's different? It's a lot hotter outside, and a lot of times the water has stopped.

Elizabeth Wahle: 18:03

And so that just kinda locks you in your mind is I need to pay much closer attention to watering this plant. And grapes aren't one that we really worry about sun. There are some plants that we would put temporary shade on. Grapes aren't one of those. So it's mainly, you know, maintaining uniform moisture while they're getting established that's critical.

Ken Johnson: 18:25

And I'll say if it's been sitting at the garden center all summer, it probably has not been the best care for it. Sometimes they are, but in a lot of cases, there's a reason they're on sale. They're on clearance.

Elizabeth Wahle: 18:38

That's definitely a good point because not only that, they're, again, in that restricted root environment in a pot. And so they're under stress just period being in the pot. And so, you know, when you add to, not being cared for, sooner rather than later is the rule for getting them in the ground. Fortunately, grapes are kind of a desirable weed, and I use the word weed in that they grow well once they're in a good planting environment.

Chris Enroth: 19:11

So let's paint a picture here and and for those listeners, and if you're watching on YouTube, maybe we can find a picture of, like, what a grape growing plant, what it looks like. Because these have to be trellis. Elizabeth, you mentioned, like, a trunk and, like, cordons. So could you paint a picture? Like, what what are we doing?

Chris Enroth: 19:32

Like, how is this growth habit, and what is it being supported with?

Elizabeth Wahle: 19:36

I'm gonna preface this with that there are entire books written on different training systems. So I'm gonna only talk about one, and it's one that's amenable to most homeowners. So I wanna make that clear that they're way beyond what I'm getting ready to describe. So when we plant a grape so let's say that you went to the garden center. As Ken says, you go and you buy this potted grape, it has several stems growing out of it.

Elizabeth Wahle: 20:04

You'll go and plant it, and this is a hard step for a lot of people. I would recommend that you cut away everything down to the shoot that you're going to say this is the best shoot. Keep one or two buds on it. Remove everything else. And from those two buds that need to break and grow, that first year, you're not gonna do anything but try to train, you know, one of those canes to go straight up for your trunks.

Elizabeth Wahle: 20:32

That first year, your whole goal is to promote as much leaf canopy and run that up to your top wire. And on a trellis, that's usually between the five and six foot mark. Five and five and a half is a a good height, for it. So that's what your goal is in year one. In year two, you should be able to say, this is in fact who's going to be my trunk.

Elizabeth Wahle: 20:58

Remove everything else, you know, that's below, and the idea then is the buds will break. In year two, you're gonna form your cordons, and think of them as arms. And one's gonna go to the left, and one's gonna go to the right, and you have to have the trellis wire for which they're going to be, you know, secured to grow long. And those cordons are roughly, four feet long when said and done. And you don't necessarily, lay, you know, just one cane down.

Elizabeth Wahle: 21:30

What we're looking for is, cordons that have buds. Probably, I always use my knuckle about that different distance between, you know, a bud, the next bud. So if I can do it all along, that. So that's year two. You're gonna form your cordons.

Elizabeth Wahle: 21:48

And it's in year three. Grapes are born on buds formed the previous year. And so from those buds that you formed on the cordons, the third year, those will form canes that will fall down, grow down, and that's when you'll get your crop in year three. So you got three years.

Ken Johnson: 22:12

So patience is the name of the game.

Elizabeth Wahle: 22:13

Yes. Think like asparagus. You don't get food right away. You have to do some stuff first. Good horticulture.

Ken Johnson: 22:22

So, no, one common issue we get well, not common, but some one issue we get a lot of times with with ornamental crops or vegetable crops, is herbicide drift damage. I believe grapes are particularly sensitive, kinda like tomatoes. You you whisper herbicide to them and they Yeah. I They get all shriveled up.

Elizabeth Wahle: 22:43

Yeah. If they even sniff a little bit. Yeah. So they're like red buds tomatoes. They're just super sensitive to a particular type of herbicide, and those are the growth regulating type.

Elizabeth Wahle: 22:55

And without going into technical detail, I'm gonna say that, twenty four d and dicamba would be two of those that are most common. And so I tell people when they grow grapes, you better start liking dandelions and clover and things like that in your lawn because what we use to kill dandelions and clover within a lawn are things like twenty four d and dicamba. Those are growth regulating herbicides. And so, you you just really cannot your neighbors, my neighbors all know I have grapes, and they've been wonderful. But if a grapevine gets a strong dose, it could potentially, reduce your crop, particularly if it happens before bloom, before fruit set.

Elizabeth Wahle: 23:44

Afterwards, it might just ding the plant up. You know? So it's you never wanna have drift. But for grapes, it's better if it happens after your fruit is set, than beforehand. But I'm gonna just say in general, if you're going to grow grapes, you're not gonna be using any of those types of Weed Be Gone is an example of one of the products that can't contains a lot of these types of herbicides.

Ken Johnson: 24:11

And speaking of setting fruit, are are grapes kinda like apples where you have to have cultivars cross pollinate, or do they will they self pollinate themselves?

Elizabeth Wahle: 24:19

I'm gonna say by and large, most of those are self pollinating. There are a few exceptions that need, something to cross pollinate. It's not real common, and usually it's it's quite, you know, visible on the product tag that it needs something cross pollinate. So there are a couple out there that are available for sale, but by and large, most of them will self pollinate.

Chris Enroth: 24:45

So share let your neighbors know that you plan to share grapes with them if they don't spray their their lawn right next to them, and that's a really good incentive, I think. I'll deal with the dandelion and clover if I can get some Elizabeth's table grapes.

Elizabeth Wahle: 24:59

Well, I think it kinda helps that, you know, the new trend is a healthier lawn, you know, is is one that is a mixed species. And so I think there's, you know, there are still some that, you know, have the beautiful emerald grass lawns, but, I think, you know, they're starting to catch on that mixed species is is better for biodiversity. So it helps us with grapes as well.

Ken Johnson: 25:23

Yep.

Chris Enroth: 25:26

So if we could go into our way back machine and, think about all of the questions you've received, Elizabeth, about grapes and mistakes. What would you say is the most common mistake that new grape growers make?

Elizabeth Wahle: 25:41

Well, I can do it at different staging. You know, the first one is picking something that's just not a good choice. You know, it's either not cold hardy enough or it has such severe sun you know, susceptibility to disease, they can't keep keep the plants alive. So there there's step one. Do your due diligence.

Elizabeth Wahle: 26:00

But I think the other one is at planting. You know, grapes don't compete well against weeds at all, and so they need to have for at least their first five years of establishment a completely vegetation free zone below the vines. And so even if you're just planting one, let's just say that you have, you know, a patio arbor and you're just planting one, it needs to have at the base of the vine a completely vegetation free. And we usually, you know, say, one and a half to two feet, you know, in all directions, at the base needs to be for the first five years. And I don't think that people realize how seriously, the plant is set back when it's in a competitive situation with, you know, weeds or if they, you know, get a great idea to plant ornamentals or something at the base.

Elizabeth Wahle: 26:58

I I've been hearing all these things, you know, about biodiversity. Well, not all plants play well nice with others, and grapes are one that just does not do well with competition, so bare ground. So that's probably the, you know, the second thing that I see. The third thing I see is failure to fertilize. I don't know where the mindset or how it's gotten out that that grapes don't need to be fertilized, but they do.

Elizabeth Wahle: 27:27

They might not need to be fertilized, you know, as much as some crops, but they do need and, you know, you can always look at a grape grapevine and know whether it's struggling. And I always tell people that the tendrils on the plant are kinda like your gas pedal. You know, right now, if I were looking at tendrils, if they didn't extend beyond beyond the tip of the plant, you know, we're in active growth phase, those tendrils should be beyond the tip of the, you know, cane. And if they're not, I would immediately be saying you need to fertilize those vines. They they don't have enough going for them.

Elizabeth Wahle: 28:01

It's not until you get, you know, a real strong fruit crop on there does that kinda slow down, on there. So fertility is probably the other thing, and it's usually nitrogen that is needed.

Chris Enroth: 28:15

You know, I I recall it was it was you, and we also had doctor Brad Taylor with SAU Carbondale came out. We toured a couple vineyards, and I really saw, you know, the the the plants that were struggling had a lot of weed competition. You know? You and him were both saying, like, you gotta do something about these plants at the base of these these grape grapevines. Like, that really was very telling.

Chris Enroth: 28:39

Like, it really drove home the message to me. Right.

Ken Johnson: 28:43

So mulch? Could you just mulch the base of the plant?

Elizabeth Wahle: 28:46

Yeah. You know, in a home setting, you know, and as I said, I'm a home, you know, grape grower, and I just use mulch to help keep, you know, all that under control. You know, in a commercial setting, you know, that's not something that they would normally do it in that manner. But for a home setting, that that works beautifully.

Ken Johnson: 29:07

Actually, you talked a little bit about after planting and getting that training done. So after we've got, you know, all the scaffolding and all that, the cordons and all that set, what is what kind of yearly pruning look like once you kinda got that plant established?

Elizabeth Wahle: 29:22

Yeah. Once you've once you've got the, you know, the actual architecture of the plant set up, there are there are two basic ways to prune. As I said, there are entire books on training methods. Well, there's a couple of different, there's there's cane pruning, and there's also, spur pruning. And I'm gonna say, by and large, in Illinois, most of our pruning is spur pruning.

Elizabeth Wahle: 29:49

And so what a spur is is just you know, when I told you in year three, those canes that drop down will form your first crop. Well, the next dormant season, you would cut those canes down to short little shoots, maybe this long, and we call those spurs. And after that, that is where all of the canes are going to come from. So you're kind of creating a semenite permanent placement of where all your canes are gonna come off. And so, as I said, each spur should be about Elizabeth's knuckle distance on both sides of the of the of the cordon.

Elizabeth Wahle: 30:29

And, you know, we usually on every spur, I'm gonna say in general, two canes will come off of that. And so if you kinda keep in mind that grapes are born on buds formed the previous year, that they're not born on older wood, that's you know, I think that might be number four on what home gardeners do wrong is they don't prune enough. The plant should really look like a stick almost when you're when you're done. You know? The trunk, the cordon with little stubs, all over the place.

Elizabeth Wahle: 31:09

And I think it's difficult, maybe scary. I mean, that's too excessive of a word, but it makes them nervous to cut that much off of the of the grapevine. But if you just keep in mind that they're they're much like peaches in that you have to preserve so much of last year's wood to get this year's crop. They're not like apples. You can prune too much off and really, you know, severely hit your wood.

Elizabeth Wahle: 31:37

So that's why we have cordons and little spurs on there so that you kinda have, set up for year after year. Once you have it set up, it's fairly easy. And I guess that kinda leads me into the fifth mistake is not realizing that all part need to be replaced at some point on a grapevine. Nothing is permanent. You know, let's say that you've got

Ken Johnson: 32:03

a

Elizabeth Wahle: 32:03

grapevine and you get freeze injury. Let's just say we get some crazy freak freeze injury and the trunk gets injured. And all of a sudden, the trunk starts shooting up, you know, new new canes because there's an injury, and and all the old growth just kinda looks sick. It it's just not growing well. Well, do you keep that sick vine that's been injured by freeze, or do you start, hey.

Elizabeth Wahle: 32:30

I'm gonna take this new shoot that's coming up and start training it up, and I'm gonna retrunk this tree, this vine, and record on it. It might take some time. But I think, you know, as an experienced grape grower, that's when you recognize if you've got blind wood on a cordon, you know, nonproductive area, you don't leave it that way. You just take a nice little shoot. You lay it in, tie it down, and eventually, can cut off, you know, that place that doesn't have production.

Elizabeth Wahle: 32:58

So always remember, all parts of a grapevine eventually will be replaced. I think they get this, you know, in their mindset, it's like, oh, I've seen these hundred year old vines. Well, it's not a hundred year old vine. Maybe the root system's been in the ground that long, but it's probably been retrunked many, many times over those hundred years. Just nobody told them that.

Chris Enroth: 33:25

Oh, that sounds so you would be making a major commitment. I know a few people that have, like, built an entire trellis over their patio to train grapes. Yeah. And, oh, if you got hit by a late freeze or something, you're you're starting over.

Elizabeth Wahle: 33:42

And it is. I you know, and that's what I, you know, tell tell gardeners or beginners that you always need to be kind of preserving extra parts. Like, don't clean up the base of the trunk so much. You know? Always have, you know, something in reserve in case something goes wrong because you're ahead of the game, you know, keeping some spare parts, on there.

Elizabeth Wahle: 34:05

And so, you know, we can have freeze injury. Sometimes disease sneaks in on you, and you have to make the sacrifice of saying, you know, I've I've got wood injury to disease, and I've gotta cut it away, and you need to lay something else in. Plant's still alive. You just need to do something to, you know, lay in some new cordon or or start a new trunk. Alright.

Chris Enroth: 34:31

Well, let's dive into the meaty topic of pest insects and disease. Now you mentioned, Elizabeth, primarily, we're focused on disease. I know, like, Japanese beetles and things can get on grapes. But in a backyard, I feel like it'd be pretty easy just to do the old, you know, pick them off soapy water thing. There are some insecticides that you could spray for Japanese beetles.

Chris Enroth: 34:54

I know that's a pretty common one, but it it it's really disease that seems to be the the thing that that is the why most people call me at least. Like, what is this this issue with my grape disease usually? And often, I'm just like, I don't know. So send it to the plant clinic because crepes are complicated in my eyes. So help me out here, Elizabeth.

Chris Enroth: 35:18

What should we be watching out for insect and disease wise?

Elizabeth Wahle: 35:22

I guess I can't, say it enough. Do your research, you know, and make sure that you don't invite a problem. Because if, you know, if all the experts who have been evaluating these grapevines say that, you know, x y z is super sensitive to x y z, you're not special. It will come to get you eventually. That's just a reality.

Elizabeth Wahle: 35:47

So, you know, for those that are listening that have grapevines and have, you know, struggled with disease, what is nice is is if you have one and you're controlling it, you're basically controlling all of those if you do a good job. And so I tell people that we have, two control points for fruit protection. So that doesn't mean I'm not talking about the leaves and stuff. I'm talking about if you want fruit, there are two critical time periods that you need to protect. And one of them, you know, is late dormant.

Elizabeth Wahle: 36:23

I mean, like, like, very late dormant. If you're standing out there and you're like, oh, I think those buds are starting to swell, that's when you wanna do your late dormant as late as possible. And we do that for diseases called anthracnose, and that's something like a copper spray or a liquid lime sulfur. So there there is a critical control point right there. The next one, is immediate pre bloom, and you're on a spray cycle for about four to six weeks after bloom.

Elizabeth Wahle: 36:52

That means going in every two weeks. You know, if you don't have a wash off event, then you'd have to add some sprays. But that is the critical period to protect the fruit so that you know the fruit is not gonna get black rot. You know? It helps with anthracnose and pheomopsis as well.

Elizabeth Wahle: 37:12

And so you're controlling several diseases. I think, Chris and Ken, the tricky thing is is what products do you need for controlling, you know, these? And and it's very specific, for grapes because when you're looking at pesticides, you need to have not only an effective pesticide, but you need one that's labeled for grapes. And you need to be able to apply it within, you know, the pre harvest interval or the PHI. All food crops have, you know, a PHI for their pesticides.

Elizabeth Wahle: 37:45

And so when I've already mentioned that the dormant period, you know, you need to have either copper or liquid lime sulfur. And there are a number of if you grow fruit crops, you probably have that because that's a dormant application for a lot of things like peaches and apples as well. And so, you know, there are other crops that you'll use that for. But when we look at grapes, they have two diseases that are not controlled by the normal fungicide, you know, that we use in vegetable crops. You know, a real common would be chlorthalonil, the active ingredient.

Elizabeth Wahle: 38:18

That does not have any activity on black rot or powdery mildew. It does absolutely nothing. And so if you use, you know, your traditional fungicide on grapes, it it just isn't gonna help you out at all. And so when we look at grapes, it's really important to know what is effective. And so for black rot, something, you know, that, has the active ingredient mancozeb is very effective for black rot.

Elizabeth Wahle: 38:46

So you need to source that. And I think ortho and bone eye probably both make a mancozeb product that you mix with water and spray spray on. So that's your e early season spray. There is another product, that is made by Spectracide, and it's called Spectracide Immunox. I think it's, general purpose.

Elizabeth Wahle: 39:09

And the active ingredient is mycobutanol, And that is very effective again against black rot and powdery mildew. And so that's the next one that you need. So Mancozeb and the Spectrocyte Immunox for grapes. So for grapes, you're going to get some very specific, not general, very specific. And they're available, the not as readily, so you might have to do some looking around, ahead of time to make sure that you've got a supply of it.

Elizabeth Wahle: 39:42

But I also for late season, because I mentioned a PHI, Mancozeb has a seventy seven day PHI. So you can use it early season to get you through that black rock window, but then you need to stop. And then what can you spray after that? And that's when cap ten comes in. And so, again, that's why people should be thinking, oh gosh.

Elizabeth Wahle: 40:04

That seems like an awful lot of work. That's why I go back to do your research and find something that's not quite so susceptible to all these diseases because it will really reduce how much, you know, pesticide applications you have to do. And that kind of moves me to someone always asks me, I wanna grow these organically. In Illinois, black rot is our Waterloo. We do not have an effective organic product for black rot.

Elizabeth Wahle: 40:39

And so if you wanna grow organically, it is critical that you do your research and find something that is not, you know, susceptible to black rot. You need to find one that has slightly susceptible to give yourself a fighting chance, to grow grapes. And that's just my comment on that. All the other ones, can probably find an organic solution, you know, for, but black rot is the one that we do not have a good organic solution for.

Chris Enroth: 41:07

What family is the grapes in? What plant family?

Elizabeth Wahle: 41:13

Spydus.

Chris Enroth: 41:14

Mhmm.

Elizabeth Wahle: 41:18

I I think that it's just its

Chris Enroth: 41:20

own family. Own.

Ken Johnson: 41:22

Mhmm. Okay.

Elizabeth Wahle: 41:23

That up while we're talking.

Chris Enroth: 41:25

Yes.

Elizabeth Wahle: 41:26

Looking right now. You'd think I'd know that, but I think it's its own family.

Ken Johnson: 41:30

Itaceae.

Elizabeth Wahle: 41:31

Yeah. Itaceae.

Chris Enroth: 41:32

Itaceae. Okay. I was like, alright. I gotta gotta clue. It's and my my brain operates in plant family sometimes, though, so I gotta plop it in its own little category in my head.

Elizabeth Wahle: 41:47

Sometimes that's important to know. Mhmm. Make kind of relationships to other plants.

Chris Enroth: 41:55

Mhmm. That's how I I do a tree fruit. I'm like, oh, yeah. Like, that's in the rose family. So we're you know, this is the suite of diseases that we're dealing with here.

Elizabeth Wahle: 42:04

Yeah. With the rose family, you immediately know fire blight is a is a possibility because it's restricted to the rose family. You know, it's Japanese beetle or, you know, one of those again that you usually think of them restricted to the rose family. But, man, when it comes to grapes, they love grapes. And I will say, you know, we talked about establishment.

Elizabeth Wahle: 42:26

That is you know, a mature grapevine can take quite a bit of feeding, you know, on the leaves. You definitely don't want them on your fruit. When they start going to your fruit, then you better get in there, as Chris said, and start knocking them off into soapy water and drowning them. But, you know, on on young grapevines that you've just planted, they can totally defoliate them in a quick hurry, and so can deer. Deer are a serious pest to freshly, planted.

Elizabeth Wahle: 42:55

And so, you know, whenever I've planted new grapevines, I I do my, my my cheap version of just hardware cloth bent around a a wood stick so that, you know, there's some protection because a deer will go after them immediately.

Ken Johnson: 43:10

So if if someone's got, a vine that's not producing fruit, I guess it's gonna depend on why it's not fruiting, but what should they do, to rectify that?

Elizabeth Wahle: 43:21

Well, you know, one of the first questions I ask is, is this a pruned grapevine? And and, usually, it's one of two things. You know, it it needs fertility is one of the possibilities, but the other thing is is usually pruning, and then it it needs to be brought back into a fruiting state. You know, like many plants, if they're overly vigorous and, you know, in a vegetative state and too much shading on itself, then it's not fruitful, and you don't get enough crop. And so, usually, the first thing I say is, have you run a soil test so that we can see, you know, whether there needs to be a a bump up in fertilizer?

Elizabeth Wahle: 44:05

But it usually has something to do with pruning. Then it needs to have a lot removed to open it up to sunshine and make it more fruitful.

Ken Johnson: 44:14

So if somebody's got a grapevine that that hasn't been pruned in a while, like, kinda like tree fruit, you do that over a period of time to get it back under control. So the same thing with grapes, or can we just can you kinda hack it back at hack it back and dump?

Elizabeth Wahle: 44:26

Yeah. It's it no. You can you can turn it into what it needs to be, right from right from you know, with with apples, we usually, you know, save, you know, one to two big cuts, and a a big cut would be anything you can't use your loppers on. Anything that you need to have a pruning saw or chainsaw is a big cut. So, you know, one, maybe two.

Elizabeth Wahle: 44:52

But grapes, no. You need to you need to get them turned around right away. And that's where, you know, if if you've got a a grapevine that hasn't been pruned, you really need to study all the parts first to see if what was the initial cordon is already kinda in sad shape, whether the trunk is in sad shape, because you might be in a situation where you're just cutting the entire trunk and preserving one of those new canes coming up and starting all over. So I will say kind of evaluate the situation. I was in a commercial vineyard just recently, and the recommendation was to cut them all off and start over the whole entire the whole entire vineyard.

Elizabeth Wahle: 45:38

It was in bad enough shape that, you know, they they bought an existing vineyard that had not been cared for, and that's what they did. And grapes, as I say, are kinda like weeds. They'll they'll take off and go on you.

Chris Enroth: 45:53

Well, I I see this trend happening quite a bit. You know, we have we have our patio blueberries and tomatoes. You know, you don't have to trellis these things. You don't have to worry about, you know, too much maintenance or care, so low maintenance. And actually, my county director, she had purchased some of these grapevines, mini grapevines or something.

Chris Enroth: 46:15

She thought, oh, I could just plant this and just leave it alone. I might know the answer to this already, but Elizabeth, are there any grapes that we can just plant and forget some low maintenance ones?

Elizabeth Wahle: 46:28

Well, you know, I'm probably gonna give a wishy washy answer to this because when we're growing a fruit plant, not just grapes, we usually are highly manipulating them to towards our desire for a crop. And so I think there needs to be an understanding that we can pretty much walk away from any plant, and let it do its own thing, and it doesn't need us, on there. You know, what my takeaway on that is is you have to think about, you know, is it susceptible to disease? Because that might come back and bite you, you know, if you just walk away and it was susceptible. But one of the other things that usually happens when you just walk away and we're not manipulating it with pruning, you know, and combing down cordons and keeping everything straight and exposed to the sun is that we don't have as much yield.

Elizabeth Wahle: 47:26

And so I can say, yes. You know, if something happens in your life and you have to walk away from it, usually the plant is not gonna die, but you might not get the yield potential, you know, of that one or two vines that you would have otherwise gotten.

Chris Enroth: 47:42

I guess that that makes sense too. You know? Like, you you can walk away. These plants aren't necessarily going to just die right away if we stop paying attention to them. Like, there's a grower I work with her, and she's got Concord grapes that that came with the farm.

Chris Enroth: 47:59

And she I don't think she really does anything to them, but she just harvest them as much as she can and makes maybe a gallon or two of grape juice every year out of it.

Elizabeth Wahle: 48:08

And, you know, even when I talk about, you know, apples, you know, in a commercial in a commercial setting, we've come up with all this research because the whole goal is to make you know, be sustainable and make a profit. You know, when we are home gardening, that's not necessarily our goals, you know, on things. And so, you know, if I give an example of having an apple tree, you know, that reaches out and, you know, gets you every time you try to mow it, you know, a homeowner, you know, is more likely to go in there and, you know, lop that limb off to make life, you know, a little bit easier for them to mow. And I think, you know, a lot of home growing has to be somewhat adjusted to a home environment, for that reason.

Ken Johnson: 49:01

Yes. Alright. So we've we've weathered the storm with our our pests and diseases. Our grapes are are ready to pick. How do we know when to pick them?

Elizabeth Wahle: 49:12

Well, I you know, for homeowners that don't have the equipment, I mean, there's obviously you know, you can buy a refractometer, you know, and and measure the bricks, you know, and and, you know, pick at a certain bricks. And that's how winemakers do it. I mean, they actually are are looking at specific bricks. But for a homeowner like me, I go out and, you know, I I sample. And I sample on the shade side, you know, on the north side of the trellis.

Elizabeth Wahle: 49:43

I sample on the south side of the trellis. I sample at the tip of the cluster, and I sample at the shoulder. When it tastes good to me, that's when I harvest. So I always tell people, don't go on color because they go through raisin, and that's the coloring phase, a lot sooner than they're truly ripe before they have built their sugar content and before they have their full flavor profile. And so it really is a go out and taste them and see if they're ready to go.

Elizabeth Wahle: 50:17

Now there are you know, not to muddy the waters, but I guess I am. There are some, American varieties like Edelweiss that you know, we always talk about American grapes having a foxy flavor to them or a muskiness. Well, Edelweiss is one that is super musky, almost to the point of, you know, distasteful. And so it is kinda one of those exceptions that we harvest it before it's fully ripe. And so, it's it's an exception.

Elizabeth Wahle: 50:52

Otherwise, I would just say do it on taste.

Chris Enroth: 50:56

I guess if you go out and you harvest, are there any methods for, like, storing or preserving the grapes that we harvest? I suppose refrigeration or or fermentation, but, yeah, what what how do we store these things that we've harvested?

Elizabeth Wahle: 51:10

Yeah. Grapes are usually good in the refrigerator for about two weeks, you know, if you've harvest them in good condition. You know, there there's not some underlying fruit rot. You know how fruit is. If there's one bad berry, it it can spread.

Elizabeth Wahle: 51:25

So assuming that you have, you know, done a good job of cleaning, they'll store in the refrigerator for you to be able to decide, you know, what you're going, to do with them. In my home, I grow, like I say, Sunbelt, which is a Concord style. When I harvest, I immediately go into, pressing because, these, grapes, anything that you're going to chill, is gonna precipitate out, the tartrate acid in there. And so you'll have I've I've supplied you a picture, for that, to see that. But we call those, wine diamonds.

Elizabeth Wahle: 52:12

And so tartrate acid is what gives grapes their flavor. It's part of the flavor profile. But one of the distracting things is is when you, squeeze the juice and it gets chilled down, they precipitate out, and we call them wine diamonds. And so it's totally safe to, you know, ingest these crystals, but it's not really that palatable. And so when I, bring in, my grapes, first thing I do is I press them, and then I just stick them in the refrigerator for, you know, at least a day, to get those, to precipitate out.

Elizabeth Wahle: 52:51

And then I filter them out just through cheesecroth. And then I, you know, go through whatever I'm gonna use it, jams, jellies, or just juice. But I think that is one thing that you got about a two week window, to decide what you're gonna do with your grapes, if you're just gonna eat them fresh or if you're gonna actually, you know, juice them out and and make vines or jams or jellies or something like that. But be aware of wine diamonds. And we call we call that gosh.

Elizabeth Wahle: 53:23

I just had a senior moment. Cold stabilization. Sorry. By putting it, in the refrigerator, to to force that to happen. I don't know if you've ever had, grape juice that hasn't been cold stabilized before it was put in the jar.

Elizabeth Wahle: 53:41

You know, they maybe went through the canning process, and then they stick it in the refrigerator, and all of a sudden there's just this white layer at the bottom. Those are all those, crystals that have formed that you kind of avoid pouring in your glass. And so by doing it ahead of time, you can avoid that. Again, it's all safe. It's it's part of the grape that we normally eat, but it's that chilling that causes it.

Ken Johnson: 54:08

There are some diamonds we don't want.

Elizabeth Wahle: 54:11

Yeah. There's some diamonds we

Ken Johnson: 54:14

Alright. So wrap so wrapping up here. We didn't ask you at the beginning. What is your preferred method of eating grapes? Table, raisin, fermented juice?

Elizabeth Wahle: 54:25

I'm an equal opportunity. I I keep I keep raisins on on hand at all times. They go into every salad. I eat a lot of curries. They're in I mean, I cook with them, so they're in.

Elizabeth Wahle: 54:40

We have grapes and fresh grapes in the refrigerator as well, but grape juice is one of our favorite. Either I made it or we buy it when we run out. So I'm gonna and I definitely imbibe it, fermented as well. So I I just am an equal opportunity. I don't know that I have a favorite one over the other.

Elizabeth Wahle: 55:02

I I just thoroughly enjoy them.

Ken Johnson: 55:04

Alright. And I guess do you have a favorite grape variety? If there's only you only grow one type of grape variety, what would it be and why?

Elizabeth Wahle: 55:12

Oh, it has to be a Concord. I I've been ruined as a child, you know, growing up with Welch's cooperative. I you know, the rest of the world outside of The United States, you know, just is appalled that we eat American grapes. You know? They that foxiness is a total fault.

Elizabeth Wahle: 55:30

You know? And that might be, but I have an acquired palate for it. I will always love it. I love it as as juice. I love it, you know, sparkling, and I love it fermented.

Elizabeth Wahle: 55:42

And so I think that it I would always have a Concord grape. My second one is anything that has, you know, the Muscat heritage in it. I I really like that flavor. And there are a lot of options of muscat flavoring too in in table grapes and wine grapes. So if people like muscat, there are several.

Elizabeth Wahle: 56:10

You know, if you look at, something like Neptune table grape, which is, very suited to Illinois seedless, it has that muscat, background flavor that is very desirable to a lot of people, that nice sweetness, almost a cloying sweetness, but good. But I'm gonna say a Concord type, like what I grow, Sunbelt.

Chris Enroth: 56:33

I

Elizabeth Wahle: 56:36

mentioned Oh, I I'll I'll mention that I grow Sunbelt. One of the problems with Concord as you move to a warmer climate is it does not ripen evenly, and so it has green berries. And so that's why Sunbelt was developed, was to have more uniform ripening in a warm climate. So that's why I have that instead of the straight Concord.

Chris Enroth: 56:56

Hopefully, my great trepidation has not, you know, scared anyone off of growing this because now at the end of the show, I feel like I could do this again. So, Elizabeth, do you have any parting words for someone like me or someone listening or watching that is going to be starting their grape growing journey?

Elizabeth Wahle: 57:18

Disease resistance. Disease resistance. Disease resistance. There's nothing and I think we can all disagree or agree on this is there's nothing more disappointing, than to have disease take out your plant and just struggle to get it under control, particularly, you know, if you don't have the the, you know, the time or the inclination to be, you know, spraying, you know, every other week, if not not more for it. So I I'm gonna say do your homework, and you can find some varieties out there that are are very good, that almost seem like you can walk away if it weren't for the pruning requirements.

Chris Enroth: 58:00

Well, that was a lot of great information about growing grapes in your very own backyard. Well, the Good Growing podcast is a production of University of Illinois Extension, edited this week by Ken Johnson. And a special thank you to our special guest today, Doctor. Elizabeth Wally. Elizabeth, thank you so much for being on the show today.

Chris Enroth: 58:19

It's always so great to have you here and to learn from your vast amount of great growing knowledge as of today that we got. Thank you.

Elizabeth Wahle: 58:27

As always, it was a pleasure,

Chris Enroth: 58:31

Thank you. And Ken, thank you very much for for being here, editing, and and also, you know, growing the grapes. Do you grow grapes, Ken?

Ken Johnson: 58:41

I I don't, but after today. Like you, I I feel more confident now.

Chris Enroth: 58:45

So Mhmm.

Ken Johnson: 58:48

Maybe sometime down the line. When I have more time, I'll try.

Chris Enroth: 58:51

Next year.

Ken Johnson: 58:55

I was saying thank you, Elizabeth, as always. It's great having you on. And Chris, let's do this again next week.

Chris Enroth: 59:02

Oh, we shall do this again next week. It's milkweed, the plant of the year for 2025. We'll talk all about Asclepus, that genus. Now there's many different species out there I think we can cover. So I yeah.

Chris Enroth: 59:15

We are going to be discussing milkweed next week. So listener, thank you for doing what you do best and that is listening. Or if you're watching us on YouTube, watch it. And as always, keep on growing.