ISU Extension Fruit Crop field extension Specialist Spotlight

Greetings IWGA members, my name is Randall Vos and I recently started as the new ISU Extension Fruit Crop Field Extension Specialist.  Some of you may already know me from my previous work at Des Moines Area Community College (DMACC) where early in my career I taught web-blended viticulture courses and provided some technical assistance to grape growers.  

For those of you that I have not met, I thought I would provide some background.  I grew up in rural Sioux County in northwest Iowa.  I attended Dordt University for an Agriculture: Plant Science degree.  While at Dordt I had internships at an apple orchard and an organic vegetable grower, and I also spent a semester abroad with a tulip grower in the Netherlands.  Next, I attended Michigan State University (MSU) and worked primarily in viticulture for my master’s degree, but also got experience with a wide range of fruit crops while working with my advisors and other students.  After MSU I was the production manager of a wholesale greenhouse and for a brief spell did some fertilizer research.  I taught at DMACC for over 15 years, early on in viticulture, after which I became chair of the Horticulture Department and taught the production related horticulture courses.  While teaching at DMACC I completed a Ph.D. through the ISU Horticulture Department where I investigated the effect of crop load, timing of harvest, and canopy architecture on fruit quality for some of the grape cultivars we grow in Iowa.

My new position covers all fruit crops, so while grapes is only part of the work I do, it will be a significant part of the position.  I am based at the Marion County Extension Office in Knoxville, but the entire state is my territory.  

Please reach out with any questions you might have; my contact info is at the end of this article.  I can do some site visits as well.  

Below are some ideas on what type of input I would appreciate from growers and some short-term goals of things I would like to look into.  If you have any suggestions or would like to participate, please let me know soon.

Requested Input from Growers

  1. What are the greatest needs of the grape growers? I will be sending out a survey to address this, but also please feel free to reach out directly.

  2. How can I assist grape growers?

  3. Vineyard updates:  What are you seeing currently, either good or bad, in your vineyards?

  4. Can we partner in your vineyard to use some grapevines (see below) to track some viticulture parameters?

Short-Term Goals

  1. Get to know the grape growers: I would like to meet many of you so I can see your vineyard, hear what works for you, what the challenges are, etc.

  2. Sentinel vines: I would like to do some long-term tracking of some of the more significant grape cultivars.  In an ideal world, I would be granted the use of a few vines per cultivar and location, to track some major vine parameters such as pruning weights, canopy assessments, yields, etc.  The goal of these would be to help us to determine how to grow these cultivars better.  I would do the pruning, canopy management, harvesting, etc. for these vines.  Eventually this information would be shared in future newsletters, presentations, etc.

  3. Canopy management:  I would like to set up some basic canopy management demonstrations/trials.  The goal of this would be to see what practices are the most important to influence fruit quality and vine health.  My initial thought us I would impose some different canopy management practices in a row or so of a partnering vineyard.  During the season I would assess the canopy, subsample the fruit, and check the dormant buds.  Ideally this would be something that I track for several years.

  4. Field-grafting: Some growers have expressed the desire to change grape cultivars.  If your vines are healthy and high in vigor, field grafting (top-working) is a viable option in place of ripping out the vines and re-planting.  One of the more effective methods of field grafting grapevines is T-budding in late spring or early summer.  This generally requires dormant canes of the variety you want to graft to.  My guess is most growers do not have some dormant canes just laying around in their coolers right now as a source of grape buds, but if so let me know!  In tree crops sometimes you can use green buds at the base of current season shoots as your source of buds. To my knowledge, this has not been done a lot in grapes, but we could try.  If you have interest in trying a little field grafting this spring/early summer or next season, please let me know.  

I look forward to working with you all.

Randall Vos
 

Randall Vos, Ph.D.
Commercial Fruit Crop Field Specialist
Iowa State University Extension & Outreach
Cell 641-660-5710
rjvos@iastate.edu

Marion County Extension Office
210 N. Iowa Street
PO Box 409
Knoxville, IA 50138