I'm researching soil conditions for Marechal Foch grapes. Does anyone here grow them? Do their soil preferences differ from traditional vinifera?
I understand that grape clusters are smaller. What are some healthy yeilds per vine? I know this varies depending on pruning and vine age, but a ball park figure would be suffice.
Regards
Jeff Chorniak
Jeff ,
I would assume like all vines Marecal Foch likes well drained soil. It's a hybrid so they are said to grow better in soil with a little lower ph between 5.5 and 6.5 but if the soil was between 6.5 and 7.0 I wouldn't sweat it. I personally like medium to large clustered varieties. The picking is alot easier.
Bob
I have mine on an over-fertile silt loam, tending to clay loam and then clay at depth. They are horribly vigorous: I have some lower vigour ones at 1.8m, others at 2.4m and the most vigorous at 3.6m, all with double fruit zone (some canes up, some down from a main wire at 1.05m). pH doesn't seem to matter much.
On less fertile soils things are easier!
Yes - the clusters are smallish. If I ever manage to get half the canes to go downwards and so fill both canopies, I expect to break 10 tonnes/ha (4t/acre) but not by much. That would be around 80-100 canes on the 3.6 m vines and around 10 kg/vine or only 100-125 gm per cane. I would need to do some serious crop thinning to hold them down to that and get decent fruit quality. I am currently only getting partial filling of the lower canopy with a total of around 60 canes on the
3.6 m vines and they are trying to kill themselves producing 200 gm/cane which is severe over-cropping in our cool, short season area (Nova Scotia) so the small clusters are not exactly a hindrance - saves some of the crop thinning effort!Andrew Bennett, Avondale Vineyard
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