Since so many grape growers ask this question, I thought it would be a good idea to write this article as part of the “New to Grape Growing” series of posts on my blog. The reason so many new grape growers replant their vines is poor planning, improper soil preparation, and choosing the wrong site or location to plant their vines.

Choosing the right site location for your vineyard is one of the most important decisions you have to make as a new grape grower, as this will be the future home of your vineyards for years to come. I won’t go into site location and soil preparation for your grape vines in this article, but you can get all the information for free by joining the Grape Training Program. Silver Membership is a 10-day trial of what you can expect from the Grape Coaching program.

Let’s make something clear; replanting a grape vine is not ideal, especially if it is more than two years old. Therefore, you must do proper planning before establishing your vineyard. So your grape vines weren’t planted in the right place or you’re moving to another house and want to take your grapevine with you, now what? Transplanting a grape vine is risky, no doubt about that, but it can be done if you follow the instructions I’m going to give you now. Don’t stray too far from this, or you could lose your vine.

the first problem With transplanting from an old grape vine (2 years or older), it is that the root system and structure of the vine gets larger each year and makes removal of the vine much more difficult. When transplanting these grape vines, you will eventually damage some roots, as it is impossible to get them out of the ground intact. Damaging the roots of the vines will cause moisture loss through the wounds and could cause the roots to become too dry and die. When pulling vines out of the ground, be sure to dig up as many roots as possible: the more roots you can salvage, the more successfully you’ll replant your vines.

the second problem with the replanting of a vine, it is the loss of water through the leaves (evaporation). After replanting the grape vine, the roots of the vines are in shock and for a week or two they will not be able to absorb water from the soil. If the weather is hot, the grape vine will lose water through the leaves, resulting in too little water on the vine and the leaves will begin to wilt. Therefore, you should minimize shoot growth to ensure sufficient water is available on the vine by reducing the number of shoots to a maximum of three. I would advise you to prune hard and leave only a strong cane from the base of the lowest cordon. You can develop the new vine structure from there. I’d rather lose a year or two of growth and have a healthy vine than try to retain the old structure and have a dead vine!

the third problem is to plant and water the vine. Because it has a much larger root system than a normal rooted cutting, you will need to make a much larger planting hole. Make the planting hole big enough to accommodate ALL the roots and do not prune any roots to fit the planting hole, but make the hole bigger. It is important that you understand that these vines need a lot of water the first few weeks (as explained above). After removing the vine from its previous position, place the roots of the vines in a bucket of water for at least six hours, before planting them in the new location. This will ensure that the roots remain moist and that the vine does not lose water through wounds in the roots.

Do not put any fertilizer in the planting hole, it will damage the roots.

I have successfully repotted 5 year old vines this way, and there should be no reason you can’t do it yourself, but it’s always best to avoid repotting a mature vine. I hope this has given you more information on how to relocate a mature vine. The key is:

• Keep as many roots as possible,
• Minimize apical growth for at least one month.
• Make a planting hole big enough
• Keep the vine well watered.

good luck danny