Grapes

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behillman Plantersville, TX(Zone 9a) May 26, 2011

I have wild grapes growing all around me in the woods. But they are hard to get to because of the poison Ivy. I spotted 2 plants growing from seed I suppose in my flower bed. If I keep these growing & give them something to climb on, will I have grapes eventually? How many years will it take?

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telosphilos Little Elm, TX(Zone 7b) May 29, 2011

Depending on the variety of grapes and conditions it will take one to three years. Grapes are usually propagated by either grafting onto a rootstock or tucking a bit of the vine under the soil until it roots on its own rather than from seed so take this with a good grain of salt.

Grapes tend not to fruit at all in the first year. If you had bought a commercial product I'd have recommended that you plant it in a bottomless pot to help it dig into the native soil and protect it from overzealous weed wackers the way TAMU's Ag extension recommends. The first year is really just getting it trained on a trellis or some other growing support because those things get heavy, as in 50 pounds of growing vine heavy.

That first winter or early the second spring, you prune it back hard. Look up cane pruning and spur pruning. Dave Willson Nursery has some good how to videos that give a lot of the how and why. TAMU has some good advice as well, but I like that the videos demonstrate a little more clearly what they are talking about.

The tricky thing is, with a wild grape we really have no idea which will work better for it. Cane pruned grapes take roughly three years to produce grapes. Spur pruned vines take two years to produce. You may need to try a little of both. Leave a couple long canes to see if those produce better than the stuff that grows out of new spurs. Whichever works better for you will be what you want to do.

Hope this helps.

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GilaAri Hayward, CA May 29, 2011

Wild grape vines will need a year or two to bear fruits.

BTW, you should remove the grape vines in your flower bed. they are quite sensitive when it comes to space and soil nutrients.

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