I’ve got a spot where I’m planting some grapes. It’s about 75 feet long. I’m trying to decide on a trellis design. Does anyone have any personal experiences with either the angled posts or the H brace? Pros and cons other than cost differences. The only supplies I currently have is the high tensile wire.
I was leaning toward the H brace, just because I think it looks a little nicer. The grapes are already planted, but still have some room for a few new varieties if I want. I’m planning on cane pruning to a four arm or umbrella kniffin.
95% of commercial vineyards in my area use ground anchors. The main argument is that all end posts eventually need to be replaced and the anchor assembly is simpler to take apart. If you have particularly rocky soil anchors may be more forgiving (able to punch through more). So, for your situation either should work fine.
That’s about standard but if you can drive them 3 feet go for it. In the commercial world panels (distance between posts) are 20-26 feet long. So in your 75 foot row you might want to add a couple skinnier line posts, or just t-posts.
Thanks, I’ll have to dig and tamp. Another reason I was thinking of the H configuration. I have quite a few 3"x8’ posts around from other projects. Those should work perfect in between.
For the ground anchor we selected the heavy duty ground anchor
The website shows the anchor being knocked with petrol knocker. You have to use a special mandrel (drive rod), and as we are on soft disturbed ground, we went for the 1m deep option. After the 1st ten, it got harder and harder, its not as easy as it looks.
But they certainly work well. The tensioning is a problem, as the tensioning tool handles are not long enough. But a short piece of scaffold pole on each handle got over the problem. I must be getting older and weak as my son found it OK to tension.
Nice. I know nothing of zone 4 grapes other than Marquette. And I would only recommend that if you’re thinking of making wine, clusters are too small for much else I’d think. Can stay very high in TA even as brix skyrocket too.
