On Mon, 07 Jun 2004 00:53:22 GMT, "Jeff Chorniak"
> wrote:

>I'm researching soil conditions for Marechal Foch grapes.

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