Hi everyone. Hope someone can help me. I planted two catawba grape plants last year and they did great. This year one started leafing out and is growing great guns. The other one didn't come back, I thought it had died, but it now has a sucker growing out below the graft. Should I just pull the plant or will the sucker eventually produce anything? We live in the high desert at 4200 feet of elevation. Had a pretty cold winter. Any suggestions on cold hardy eating grapes?
The sucker prob isn't a great eating grape, but you might want to keep it and eventually graft another top to it. You will be able to use cuttings from the one that made it thru the winter. Concord is very hardy and is a good all purpose grape. We grew it in Grand Junction, CO. There are some newer varieties listed in some of the catalogs, but I haven't had a chance to try any.
Cyngbaeld, Thanks for the info. Sounds like a plan. I have a book that tells me how to graft onto them. Might as well try it as lose the whole plant. Thanks again.
bbmae, What makes you think the vine is grafted? Almost all Catawba vines sold in the US are rooted cuttings.
I assumed it was grafted because it has a knarly joint just above ground level. Actually I don't know for sure.
Most rooted cuttings have a "knarly joint" or two on them. Your sucker is most likely Catawba. Where did you get the vines? There are a number of very cold hardy varieties that came out of Elmer Swenson's breeding program at the University of Minnesota. Anything you see that listed in a catalog as coming from them will be at least as hardy as Catawba.
Sounds like they may not be grafted. I didn't know that. I bought them at a nursery here in central oregon but I'm sure they came from the west side of the cascades as most of our plants do. I will get to looking for vines from Swenson's breeding program. Thanks for the advice. It is my first time to have any grapes survive even one winter here. I really want to grow grapes, just not informed enough about them I guess.
I have a purple seedless spicy one and a white seedless sweet one and a concord. I got all of them from local people who had success with them. Basically, everytime I see a zealous grape plant in my area I ask if I can have starts. I figure if they already are from local stock that does well it's a pretty safe bet they will do well for me.
That's great. I did the same thing with my strawberries. Now I root all the runners and give them to people in my area. Tried for a couple of years until finding strawberries that did well here, now everyone wants them. Never crossed my mind to do that with grapes. Of course there aren't many people here who grow grapes but I will be on the lookout.
