Vine growing question
The direct answer is 'yes' - assuming you have reasonable soil and the
vines are watered. I've seen numerous grapevines trained up trellises,
poles, etc.
The real question then becomes more difficult to answer; will they
produce high quality wine grapes in sufficient quantity for my
winemaking needs?
Most vineyards are now pruning back quite short - 3 feet or so. When I
visited the famous Burgundian vineyards two summers ago, I was quite
surprised at how low they prune their vines - a couple feet high when
dormant.The question here is - will having such a long stalk affect the
quality of your grapes? Honestly, I don't know.
The sedond issue becomes canopy management. Quality grapes require
pretty careful canaopy management such that they receive sufficient
sunlight, yet sufficient shade such that they don;t burn. Sufficient
airflow. And, very important, the canopy needs to be managed (leaf
pulling or hedging) to maintain appropriate balance of leaf versus
fruit. These issues DO directly affect grape quality. In a "normal"
vineyard, these are managed with trellises and accessible canopy for
leaf pulling or hedging. If your vines are on your roof - can you set
up trellis wires to control cane growth? Can you access the canopy?
Last thought - can you get enough vines for reasonable production? I
have 150 vines spaced in ten rows of about 15 each - stalks come to
about waist high before splitting into two cordons (relatively high -
but easier to work on). Vines are spaced about 6 feet apart -
producing, on average, about 7 to 8 pounds of grape per vine. That
isn;t a very big yield - how many pounds would you need for your
roofline to produce?
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