What do you suggest for Razzmatazz and Muscadine grape Fertilizer for growing vine growth and setting fruit?
thanks
3 Likes
I just watched this video made by Isons nursery. Short, precise and too the point. If I am tracking correctly a handful of 10-10-10 every month followed two weeks later by some calcium nitrate. Do this every month from March to July. That’s what I gathered from video and plan to do.
2 Likes
I also use the Ison model and have for nearly three years with good results. I don’t have Razz but I would use the same method. The other videos he has on getting the vine up and down the wire to me are equally important to getting the vine established. The 12-15" space between vine and fertilizer in my opinion is critical to growing the vine fast without killing it with love.
2 Likes
My opinion is slightly different which is dont fertilize grapes that much they dont like fertilizer. It took me years to realize they like poor soil. I failed many years at growing grapes because the soil was to good but once i planted them in clay they grew like weeds. Im not saying dont fertilize them im saying that is to much fertilizer in my experience. Some land may require that much but if i did that my grapes would go on strike and never produce. I added a little 10 year aged cow manure compost which benefitted them. 5 gallons per vine was to much so i had to rake it 6-8 feet away. The grapes grew well the year after i spread it out 6-8 feet in every direction.
4 Likes
@grower79. You probably have already seen these two videos by now. I’m guessing that your Razz is like my OH MY in that it is small with a similar root system. I think a more reasonable expectation for these this year is to reach the wire and part way down it. I didn’t pinch my vine as it got to the wire l just turned it in one direction and in about a week another one popped out for the other side.
How to grow the vine up to the wire and how to get it down the wire. My goal was to get all this done in one year but I only got my vine to about 1’ of the end.
2 Likes
Here is a perspective similar to mine Why Does Bad Soil Make For Great Wine? | VinePair at least when it comes to the hardier vine with more roots part. Here is more of the same http://www.insideiwm.com/2010/05/05/bad-soil-good-grapes/
My problem was i tried for years to grow my grapes in loam which as this article shows should not be done Redirect Notice . It was a terrible ideal growing them in loam and instead of looking for a worse spot to grow them i made matters worse and tried improving the fertility of the loam! Long term i found in my area rocky clay on a south facing hillside for drainage and sun with a small amount of aged cow manure mixed in is best. Im not trying to buck what many grape growing experts say (every situation is different) but speaking from experience ive found high fertility = bad grapes and poor quality vines.
1 Like
yes,Im just kinda scared if the fertilizer would kill the grapes, i think i put 10 10 10 on them last year and not sure if it was the fertilizer or the extreme cold that almost got them, thanks, i have 2 raztmazz might try on just one
1 Like
Once established muscadines don’t need much. Razzmatazz has much higher fertilizer needs, probably due to the constant fruit set. I am still trying to sort out exactly what it needs as it seems to be more picky about fertilizer and soil conditions.
2 Likes
Well that would explain why my grapes seem to love my greenhouse. I grow them directly in the ground which was stripped years ago of all topsoil while levelling the land and I have been trying to amend it ever since. The grapes are at the wall and the roots have the ability to grow outside the greenhouse I only fertilize in the spring and then I leave them alone. I grow Suffolk Seedless, Trollhaugen, Vanessa and Summerset Seedless.
2 Likes
Speaking of manure…when I was a kid we had a cattle farm so I know how hot it gets. As an adult, I bought in.1990s bags of composted steer manure, still could tell it had manure in it. But this last decade I cannot. When I tried one bag from a hardware store last year they had added huge rocks to it, and it was more like bark dust than manure. I do not know where to get any now. Sad.
2 Likes
Razzmatazz needs much more fertilizer than my other muscadines. I am fertilizing my 3 year old Razz as a one year old plant (every other week) this year and it is doing much better. I think the constant fruit set is a big drain on the plant.
Last year
This year
4 Likes
Razz looks impressive and appears to be loaded. It might have just needed a little more time to get established.
3 Likes
My Razz (2) has grown to 70" in two months. Just made the header cut to force my laterals.
I haven’t fertilized but will…at least this first year as all I am looking for is establishing my laterals.
I used a 48" grow tube.
1 Like
Planted two Razzmatazz last spring. Got both all the way up to my cordon at 72 inches high. Total of 25 feet of horizontal cordon growth between the two vines. That’s 35 feet of total growth from two vines in one summer.
They were 12 inches tall upon planting 25’+6’+6’-1’-1’).
New growth is now between 4 inches and a foot with one came almost 2 feet. Flower buds abound. I will have to thin the fruiting canes for these young vines to help size the ones that I keep.
2 Likes
You did a great job getting so much growth.
1 Like
I’d say I just helped nature do what it does. Excited to see how the fruit develops this summer… Even if they are miniature grapes.
1 Like
Clark, are you growing muscadines? What I see with your “poor soil” recommendation is a recipe to kill muscadines. Muscadines are adapted to fertile soils along streams. They can pull nutrients from poor soil but will always be in stress from fruit load combined with low nutrients. Grow muscadines in fertile loam and apply fertilizer appropriately. Bunch grapes - wine grapes in particular - benefit from poorer soils. Muscadines will never be productive if treated similar.
Muscadines have been bred and selected for extremely high production with a relatively small leaf canopy. When they set a heavy fruit load, they put all their energy into ripening the fruit. Afterward, the vine won’t be properly prepared and may die over winter due to fruiting stress. I have killed Supreme and Ison muscadines because I did NOT understand their fertility and pruning needs. It is fairly simple, grow them in fertile loam, prune muscadines heavily in winter, fertilize appropriately, and most important, after the fruit is harvested, add a final dose of fertilizer so the vines have something to help prepare for winter. Ison’s is not always right about muscadines, but they have been growing and selling them commercially for about 80 years. Their recommendations - for muscadines - are time tested and proven to work.
2 Likes
Since the razzmatazz is purportedly 75% muscadine, I wonder if the same should be said about it’s needs as well. Also since it’s the first indeterminate muscadine or grape, though the fruit is small, it continues producing fruit clusters all season, so to me that certainly points at the need for regular fertilizing or certainly a few applications of slow release.
Thanks for your post. I wasn’t thinking along those lines before. Time to get ahead of it.
Bad resolution, but here is a short of my Razzmatazz this AM.
The fruit tree you see is my Flavor Grenade Pluot, 2nd year in the ground. Pruned back the long growth from last year and it’s created numerous laterals. Will need summer pruning as well.
Razz needs a good balanced fertilizer but not too much. I’ve also got 50 year old Muscadines that bear heavily whose sole fertilizer is whatever the poodles leave behind in the back yard. They are Standards though so it’s more than you might think! Just toss near the base of the vine and done.
1 Like