Growing Season Summary: West Madison Agricultural Research Station Training Systems Trial

Every good vintner knows that each growing season has unique weather condition, pest pressure, and other factors that cumulatively produce a distinctive vintage. This season was no exception at West Madison Agricultural Research Station. It was the second fruiting season for our vineyard and the second year of taking data on our trial: testing out four different grape cultivars (‘Brianna’, ‘Frontenac’, ‘La Crescent’, and ‘Marquette) on three different training systems (Vertical Shoot Positioning, High Cordon, and Scott Henry). Our vineyard was subject to the late spring frost on May 14th, experienced large amounts of rainfall throughout the season, and a seemingly unstoppable infestation of Japanese Beetles. By the end of the season, we harvested a total of 4115 pounds of fruit from 180 grapevines within and ¼ acre vineyard. In retrospect, we had a fairly productive year for our grapes, despite seeing poor fruit set on ‘Brianna’, diluted sugar levels from consistent rainfall, and a late cane maturation (shoots were still green in early November).

Below you’ll find a summary of the 2016 data on yield, fruit quality, and labor requirements from our research vineyards at West Madison Agricultural Research Station.

Figure 1.1 Fruit quality and yield data from different cultivars and training systems at harvest.

Grape Cultivar	Training System	Total yield (lbs)	Total cluster count	Avg sugar content (Brix)	Avg TA (grams NaOH/L)
Brianna	HC	242.88	1112	16.5	7.2
Brianna	VSP	97.35	560	16.6	7.25
Brianna	SH	333.18	1379	16.03	6.91
Frontenac	HC	468.34	1380	21.15	12.98
Frontenac	VSP	361.18	1091	21.83	12.22
Frontenac	SH	511.12	1706	22.13	11.94
La Crescent	HC	472.09	1086	19.3	14.2
La Crescent	VSP	178.05	750	19.1	13.06
La Crescent	SH	392.71	1265	18.78	12.26
Marquette	HC	313.55	1389	23.23	10.97
Marquette	VSP	283.89	1068	24.13	10.42
Marquette	SH	462.51	1921	22.7	9.93

Figure 1.2 Labor requirements represented as average number of minutes per vine throughout the growing season based on pruning (brown), canopy management (green), and harvest (orange).