Bye Bye 101-14 MGT

One of the casualties of our replanting was this rootstock that lost it's grafted scion which we let grow. The reasons why almost all grapevine growers have to choose a rootstock is a complicated and captivating story about a root louse called phylloxera that I'll put off for a future blog, but if you are interested, a really good book to read is called The Botanist and the Vintner by Christy Campbell.
Before choosing 101-14 MGT to be our rootstock, we did a lot of research on what our area grape growers use for rootstock, beginning with reading Grapevine Cultivation in Connecticut, the 2007 Bulletin written by William Nail (Assistant Scientist), from the Connecticut Agriculture and Experiment Station. The recommendation at that time, was 3309C. We did more research and also asked Mercier, CA about 101-14 MGT. When choosing a rootstock, the following criteria should be kept in mind:¹

• Tolerance or resistance to root parasites such as phylloxera and nematodes
• Ability to influence crop maturity
• Tolerance of adverse soil conditions such as drought, waterlogging, lime and acid or saline soils
• Ability to contribute to the management of vine vigor
• Ability to contribute to grape maturity and composition

A site that summarizes the above characteristics for a rootstock of choice is Rootstock Selection written by Larry Christiansen.
Almost all rootstock is a hybrid of three species: Vitus riparia, V. rupestris, and V. berlandieri. Our rootstock, 101-14 MGT is a hybrid of V. riparia and V. rupestris. It has high phylloxera resistance, low-medium drought tolerance, but better for wet tolerance and has a better influence on the scion vigor compared to 3309C.
Something that I learned while reading Markus Keller's book, The Science of Grapevines Anatomy and Physiology is that the rootstock varieties are dioecious which means that they can be either male or female. Examples of male rootstocks are Teleki 5C, SO4, and Riparia gloire de Montpellier. Examples of female rootstocks include Kober 5BB, 101-14 Millardet et de Grasset, and Fercal! Who knew!
References:
1. Markus Keller, The Science of Grapevines Anatomy and Physiology, 2010, Academic Press, pg. 17.

Something Tells Me It's All Happening At the Node

I've already written about this phenomenon in a previous blog that I called The Mysterious Life of Grape Buds. The mystery was not the grape buds, but in my understanding of the statement: Starting with a mature, leafless, dormant vine, the buds for this year's crop sprout in early spring already bearing cluster primordia generated the prevous summer.¹
While walking the vineyard, I noticed some little red swellings in the axial positions of the Chardonnay and when I looked closely, I saw the little primordial buds! So, they do start growing in the spring and summer and are indeed affected by the weather patterns of this summer. I get it now! I dug up Charlotte Pratt's review article and I finally understand the diagram that is reprinted in many articles on grapevine structure and function and reproduced below.²

Although the Pratt review was published in 1974, I found it to be good background reading. The review goes through the various vine structures: (1) the roots, (2) the stem, (3) the bud and branch, (4) the tendril, and (5) the leaf, elaborating on the first and second year growth characteristics, which is timely for us to know. The review ends with a glossary to grapevine/plant terminology.
References:
1. Boulton, R.B., Singleton, V.L., Bisson, L. F., and Kunkee,R.E., “ Principles and Practices of Winemaking”, Chapman & Hall, New York, 1995.
2. Pratt, C., Vegetative anatomy in cultivated grapes, A review, American Journal of Enology and Viticulture, 1974, 25:131-150.

2011 Sofia Rosé

The 2011 Sofia is a dry rosé made by Winemaker Corey Beck of Francis Ford Coppola Winery. It is made from Syrah and Grenache from Monterey County. We enjoy drinking this refreshingly dry wine on our front porch after a sweltering day in the vineyard. The May-June 2013 Vineyard and Winery Management, a Packaging and Closures issue had an article on Coppola and the Art of Packaging. In it, the article mentions that Coppola has used unique bottle styles as well as cans for his wine. The Sofia Rosé is no exception. At a price point below $20.00, it is one of our go to rosés for summertime quaffing.

Our Attempt at Automating Replanting

We have been in the mode for replanting our vines that didn't make it. It's not a significant amount but there are a few things that are necessary. We modified Dave's dump trailer to make the replanting easier. Our vines are in a plastic waste bin, our IBC tank to carry water for the plants, fortunately fit on the trailer, the shovel, pencil rods, hammer and most importantly cold water for us are all loaded on the dump trailer. We go down one vineyard alley and do the replants on 2 rows of vines on either side of the tractor. It may not be much of an automation, but it really beats carrying all those things down a vineyard alley. We've done all of the Chardonnay replants (exact count to be filled in here: 105 replants, updated on July 6th) and today we are going to be doing the Chenin blanc. My husband thinks that we can do all 17 rows today. Wish us luck!

UPDATE June 25, 2013: The replants are all done! We had to abandon our afternoon efforts yesterday due to an air quality advisory of high ozone levels and you can bet that we took advantage of the advisory to get out of the sun and humidity. This morning, we headed to the vineyard at 6:30 and finished the remaining Chenin blanc and 2 Auxerrois replantings. We're catching on.
Farmers get up early to beat the heat!

All Volunteers Bright and Beautiful

There are many things to do in the vineyard and we appreciate everyone who volunteers to make the various jobs go faster. On Wednesday, Rich, who hunts our land for deer and turkey came to volunteer to move rocks. We switched jobs on him elevating his job from "unskilled labor" to "skilled labor" which is pounding in pencil rods. Although Rich came for some upper body workout, he accepted the skilled labor job and we were able to finish 8 rows of pencil rods in the afternoon. Pounding and talking makes the work go faster. We learned that Rich is a software programmer for airplane parts!

While we were pounding in pencil rods, Tim Marvin from D. H. Marvin and Son, Inc. from Colchester came walking through the field. He basically snuck up on my husband who was concentrating intently on the demanding job of pounding pencil rods. Tim came all the way from Colchester to deliver our chain harrow and also to volunteer to pick rocks. A few weeks ago, Tim came to see the vineyard and in the process of brainstorming how to clear weeds from the alley, came up with the chain harrow idea.

He also suggested that Gary come up to look at the John Deere seats that he has as a possible replacement for the seat that came with the used Landini. The next day, my husband headed up to Colchester to look at Tim's John Deere seats and came back with one he thought would fit the tractor. Our friend, Scott the welder made an adapter and the tractor is now retrofit with a comfy seat. We don't know too many tractor dealers who would go out of their way to help us find tractor solutions to our vineyard work.

The days of pencil rodding are still not over and on Saturday, my exercise buddy, Jane came to help in the vineyard. Her skill level was such that she was immediately elevated to the task of pounding in pencil rods. We started early in the morning so that we wouldn't be beat by the sun and got in another 4 rows! We've now passed the halfway mark of pounding pencil rods! We really appreciate any and all the help that our friends can give us. We are thinking that our friends who volunteer sweat equity should be part of an elite group called The Founders Circle.

Got Roots

Happy first day of summer! Today is the longest day of the year which means that we should be able to get a lot of work done in the vineyard!
It's been a month since our vines were planted by the great crew from Mudd Vineyards. At the moment, we are simultaneously trying to get rocks out of the vineyard alleys, pound in pencil rods in an effort to deter deer, and plant replacement plants. Yesterday, my husband was digging out the plants that need replacement and found that even the plants that did not have any shoot growth had roots growing! It's good to know that even though we can't seen underground, good things are happening.

Textbook Auxerrois

Our Auxerrois which has been planted on the far west side of the field is showing some good growth. I asked Fritz Westover if the leaves coming out of the axial position of the shoot was a lateral and he confirmed it, also advising us to let it grow. Later, when I was searching the Internet, I found a really good article called Grapevine Structure and Function written by Edward W. Hellman of the Horticultural Department of Texas A&M, Texas AgriLife Extension. In the article there was a diagram of a grape shoot with the various structures labeled.¹

Had I seen the article, I would have known that the leaf coming out of the axillary position was a lateral shoot, but I had not realized that the lateral shoot begins as a leaf!

A grape shoot exhibits very regular growth. In a typical shoot, you may see flower clusters growing opposite a leaf typically at the third to sixth node from the base of the shoot. Further up the shoot, there are tendrils which provide support for the growing shoots. In this article, Hellman writes that flowers and tendrils have a common developmental origin so occasionally, a few flowers can develop on the end of a tendril. Since our grape vine is really seeing only the second summer, we don't expect to see many flower clusters, but we did see this one which has a flower cluster and a tendril with a flower cluster.
Oh, the things you see when scouting!
Reference:
1. Edward W. Hellman, Grapevine Structure and Function.

DeRock! DeRock! DeRock!

We asked our friends if they would come to help us derock our vineyard alleys on Father's Day and they did not let us down. The first shift of our migrant workers began the day around 10 a.m. and called it a day at 12:30 having a better appreciation for their day jobs. Our second shift of migrant workers came around 2 p.m. and finished work around 5 p.m. and when all was said and done, we had derocked another 9 alleys for a total of 12 alleys! This means that we are one third of the way to our goal of derocking our vineyard.
Here is a shot of our motley crew:

To set the record straight, however, one of our motley crew, Barry, had a previous commitment. It turned out that his commitment was to be at the US Open held at Merion in Ardmore, PA. I'm sure that he felt hugely disappointed that he couldn't be with us derocking the vineyard because he is really into vineyard work such as tiling the vineyard when it was snow covered and 10^oF. So being able to kiss the Open trophy probably must have come in a good second to having fun derocking. You would not find a more educated group of migrant workers if you tried and we thank them for giving up their Father's Day to help us.

Vineyard Scouting: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

The rains finally let up on Friday and we took this opportunity to scout the vineyard. It is recommended that the vineyard be checked at least twice a week. We wondered what we would find with all of the rain that had fallen.
The Good:
We were really happy to see ladybugs in the vineyard. If we had aphids or mealybugs, ladybugs would be our first line of defense. These little orange ladies are extremely shy and they quickly run for cover or fly away when they see the camera approaching. We also leave any spiders that we see so that they can capture unwitting prey like this little green leafhopper.

The Bad:
We also saw some leaf damage and looking carefully, we caught the culprits. One kind of damage, which was holes in the leaves was caused by this brown cricket or grasshopper which we can't identify. We know that this is the nibbler because on all of the damaged leaves, we saw this little insect. They were a bit slow moving so we could squash them very easily. Then we found one very hungry caterpillar that had pretty much stripped the young leaves off one of the new shoots.

The Ugly:

But, the worst damage was being done by deer! We can't say that we weren't warned by numerous people, but we were so focused on getting the rocks out of the vineyard alley that we let this happen. As of yesterday, the vines affected were mainly on the perimeter of the vineyard so we quickly put in some pencil rods at the end of the day and we will go and check them today.
The good news is that we haven't seen any signs of powdery or downy mildew.

Phomopsis Cane and Leaf Spot

We may be facing favorable conditions for the release of spores from Phomopsis viticola pycnidia which include:

• Spring showers
• Temperatures between 60-75ºF
• Free moisture for humidity near 100%

Spores are released in large quantities from pycnidia found on diseased wood at budbreak and splashed by rain onto the young growing shoots. Once growth has reached 15-18 inches the canopy forms an umbrella and helps prevent the splashing effect, therefore decreasing the need for fungicide applications.¹ The good news is that since most spores are distributed through free water, the disease is frequently confined to certain areas of the vineyard, making it relatively easy to control.² The photos below show some of the damages caused by Phomopsis. They are from UC IPM Online Grape Phomopsis Cane and Leaf Spot.³

The images below shows how Phomopsis appears on dormant canes:

Knowledge of the lifecycle of phomopsis is important in aiding in the management and treatment of the disease.¹

Much more informationcan be found in the references listed below.
References:
1. J.W. Pscheidt and R. C. Pearson, Phomopsis Cane and Leaf Spot, Cornell Cooperative Extension, NYS Agricultural Experiment Station, Disease Identification Sheet No. 6 (Revision), 1991.
2. Stephen J. Vasquez, Protecting grapevines from Phomopsis Cane and Leaf Spot, April 2, 2009, San Joaquin Valley Viticulture, California Viticulture Information.
3. William Nail, Grapevine Cultivation in Connecticut, The Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station, New Haven, Bulletin 1007, May 2007.
4. UC IPM Online Grape Phomopsis Cane and Leaf Spot.

Rain and Grapevine Diseases

We have had so much rain that we are concerned about grapevine diseases as mentioned in the Compendium of Grape Disease:
For example, prolonged periods of wet weather favor Botrytis bunch rot, downy mildew and other fruit and leaf spot diseaes. Phomopsis cane and leaf spot disease can cause devastating epidemics in protracted periods of wet, cool weather.¹
One of the online publications that I keep referring to is the Identification Guide to the Major Diseases of Grapes.² Although it is a publication emanating from Canada, the photos are very helpful:

The publication provides information on the symptoms, epidemiology and weather conditions conducive to the appearance of the disease. There is also a side by side comparison of the similarities between powdery and downy mildew and then a series of photos that show the differences with powdery mildew. It also advises careful scouting in the vineyard and provides a template for scouting notes.

Reference:
1. Roger C Pearson and Austin C. Goheen, Compendium of Grape Diseases, APS Press.
2. Odile Carisse, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, Réjean Bacon, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, Jacques Lasnier, Co-Lab Recherches et Développement and Wendy McFadden-Smith, McSmith Agricultural Research Services, Identification Guide to the Major Diseases of Grapes.

The Wine Store: James Morrison's Best Kept Secret

On Monday, my husband went to The Wine Store in Westerly, Rhode Island to purchase more of the 2009 Barbaresco Terre di Bo and he ran into James Morrison. James runs several events at The Wine Store and he invited my husband to attend the Tuesday night tasting of Byron Wines from Santa Barbara.
It was pouring down rain around 5:30 when we headed to Westerly and got there a few minutes before 6 p.m. We were the first ones of a small crowd that showed up to drink wine and Skype with Byron winemaker Jonathan Nagy. We tasted through Santa Barbara Chardonnay, Santa Barbara Pinot Noir, Santa Maria Valley Chardonnay and Santa Maria Valley Pinot Noir, all from 2011. We were able to ask Jonathan questions about the wine, viticulture and winemaking (I hogged the "mike" and asked many questions).
The Santa Barbara Chardonnay had citrus notes, with a touch of minerality and was light yellow in color. Jonathan said that this Chardonnay was fermented in stainless steel and then blended with Chardonnay that had undergone malolactic fermentation in oak barrels. He used CY3079 to conduct the fermentation. There was a general consensus that it was a good wine for summer sipping on the porch or patio. In contrast to the Santa Barbara Chardonnay, the Santa Maria Valley Chardonnay is fermented using indigenous yeast in oak barrels. Jonathan said that it could take up to 7-10 days for Saccharomyces cerevisiae to begin the fermentation. The "wild" or "feral" yeasts start the fermentation and add complexity to this wine. My husband and I agreed that this was a wine that our friend Mary might like.
The Santa Barbara Pinot Noir had a beautiful aroma of rose petals and was clear ruby in the glass. It was a good tasting Pinot. The Santa Maria Valley Pinot Noir is from their estate grown grapes and is treated somewhat differently. For both of the Pinot Noirs, more than 20 clones are used in the making of the wine. All of the wines that we tasted ranged between $17-$25.00. James Morrison provided smoked salmon, foccacia, olives and humus to pair with the wines. We enjoyed Skyping with Jonathan Nagy in the company of people interested in wine. It was a great evening!
If you are interested in attending future events, James Morrison convenes the Tasting Club on the second Tuesday of every month at The Wine Store in Westerly, RI.

Four to Six Leaves Unfurling: Amateur Ampelography

Our vineyard is coming along. When we are hoeing, we take a look at the condition of our grapevines and they are at various stages of growth. Some of the more advanced representatives of each variety are shown below. I find it really difficult to tell them apart at this stage of growth.

In 1999, research done by Prof. Carole Meredith and her team using DNA typing established the relationship between Auxerrois and Chardonnay. They are siblings, with Pinot noir and Gouais blanc parentage. Although they are siblings, the new leaves of Auxerrois exhibit a copper color that can distinguish it from it's sibling, Chardonnay which have a spotted pink border.¹

The outlier among our varieties is Chenin blanc. In reading the comprehensive compendium Wine Grapes written by Jancis Robinson, Julia Harding and José Vouillamoz, they write that Chenin blanc is the offspring of Savagnin and an unknown parent. DNA analysis also shows that Savignon blanc and Chenin blanc are siblings.² We'll be up on our land again today for more hoeing and amateur ampelographying.
References:
1. Bowers, J., Boursiquot, J.M., This, P., Chu, K., Johansson, H., & Meredith, C, Historical Genetics: The Parentage of Chardonnay, Gamay, and Other Wine Grapes of Northeastern France, Science: 285, 1999, pp 1562 - 1565.
2. J. Robinson, J. Harding and J. Vouillamoz, Wine Grapes - A complete guide to 1,368 vine varieties, including their origins and flavours, pg 236, Allen Lane 2012 ISBN 978-1-846-14446-2.

A Vine With a View

Most of our vines are now in the 1-3 inch shoot stage in the Eichhorn-Lorenz grapevine growth classification. This is a view from our Chardonnay ENTAV clone 76, looking north at my husband hoeing rocks. By walking our vineyard, we were able to get a count of the vines that didn't make it. Fortunately, Mercier, CA is sending us all the required replacements. They have been a terrific group of people to work with.
In the meantime, we got a break from hoeing yesterday when the remnants of Tropical Storm Andrea provided us with some needed rain that fell steadily all day with some occasional downpours. Hopefully, all the tiling work that Jeff, Bill, Barry and my husband did, removed any excess water in the vineyard.
As farmers, we have become avid weather watchers. I have a link to the Stonington Extended Weather Forecast that I put under the tab called Online Resources so that I can check on what the day as well as the week will be like. So far, this spring has been very cool, with the exception of the mini-heat wave that we had from May 30-June 1. We feel that all of this has been working in our favor, but it is only a matter of time that the weeds as well as the vines will take off and we still have work to do.

2009 Barbaresco Terre di Bo

We have still not gotten into the rhythm of life as farmers, but since daylight is much longer, we are keeping later hours working in the vineyard. Last night, it was only 7 p.m., early enough to wash up and go out for dinner, but we decided to pick up some steaks and have a salad. My husband, among his many talents, can grill. While waiting for dinner, he opened up this 2009 Barbaresco Terre di Bo. We knew upon first sip that the soft tannins and acids would stand up to the hearty steak. It was a balanced wine with good red and black berry flavors, so yummy! The grape used in the Barbaresco wines are Nebbiolo. The color of the Terre di Bo was clear, ruby in the glass and went seamlessly with the steak. The best thing about this Barbaresco is that you can pick it up for $20.00.
This Barbaresco is designated as DOCG (Denominazione di Origine Controllata e Garantita). With a little searching on the Internet, I learned that the Terre di Bo Barbaresco was designated as DOCG in 1980. This means that there are strict rules governing the production of these wines. This is similar to the French Appellation d'Origine Contrôlée (AOC).
To be a DOCG in Italy, rules such as the permitted grape varieties, yield limits, grape ripeness, winemaking procedures and ageing specifications, must be followed. In addition, every DOCG wine is subject to official tasting procedures. It passed our taste test as well.¹
A perfect ending for yet another day of hoeing rocks!
Reference:
1. Italian Wine Label Designation.
More Information:
Wikipedia Denominazione di origine controllata.

Ampelography 101: A Test in the Vineyard

We have been walking the field to see which plants need replacement. What this entails is a close look at all 6800 of our vines. I love this part of vineyard work. Now that they have been budding out and really showing their leaves, we find that it is very interesting. The new leaves on our Auxerrois has a red tinge. In my head, I say in my best Anne Burrell voice "Hi, cutie!" (Okay, I'm watching too many episodes of Food Network and I know that is going to change soon.)
Walking the field is a lesson in ampelography, which is the field of botany concerned with the identification and classification of grapevines traditionally done by comparing the shape and colour of the vine leaves and grape berries.¹ We first encountered ampelography when we visited Mercier, CA and Sebastian took us on a tour of the mother blocks. He showed us how the leaves of the different varieties of grapes differ and this is one way of telling them apart.

We now have two books on ampelography. One is a 1979, translation and adaptation of Pierre Galet's book, A Practical Ampelography, Grapevine Identification by Lucie Morton. The other is an updated compilation by Pierre Galet entitled Grape Varieties. As we walked the field, we also saw plants that had both the scion growing as well as our rootstock, as shown on the photo on the right. Since our vines are tall grafted vines, it is really easy to distinguish any growth coming from our rootstock, which is 101-14 MGT. (More on rootstocks in another blog.) Now for the test:

A few moments later, we came upon the vine that had foliage resembling what we had identified as our rootstock, 101-14 MGT. When we looked closer, it was the rootstock. On the right side in the photo above is the vine that sprouted rootstock because the scion had become dislodged. Close observation and attention in the vineyard is paying off.
References
1. Definition of Ampelography on Wikipedia.

Our Vineyard Rocks

We are waiting for our trellis supplies to be shipped to us and in the mean time, we have been hoeing and picking up rocks. Dave came to our rescue again by providing us with a dump trailer. So, the first use we made of our narrow Landini was to hook it up to the dump trailer to pick up the rocks in our vineyard. While the width of the Landini is 56-inches wheel to wheel, the dump trailer's width is 68-inches wheel to wheel and this presents a challenge when driving down our 7 foot rows.

On Thursday, the start of our mini heat wave when temperatures were predicted to rise to 90 degrees in inland Connecticut, we went up to our land at 9 a.m. and had a strategy to pick up our rocks. My husband drove the little Landini down one row and we picked up the rocks on either side of that row and the row itself, in effect doing 3 rows in one pass. This was a nice strategy until we filled up the dump trailer with rocks in no time flat. Despite hydrating ourselves every chance we had, by the time 11 a.m. rolled around, we were overheating. We decided that we had to stop and come back in the evening. At 6 p.m., we returned to the land and finished the 3 rows that we started in the morning. 1 days work = 3 rows of rock picking.
We decided on Friday, that we needed to go up to the land even earlier. We got there at 7 a.m. and this time, we hoed the rocks into the middle of the row first, thinking that this would make it easier to pick the rocks up with the dump trailer. My husband went to start the Landini. Click-click-click. Yikes! Was it the alternator? He called Russell who suggested that it might be the battery. Yes, Occam's razor should be applied to farming work, too! When my husband jumped the Landini with his John Deere, it started. He took the battery to get it tested to see if it would hold a charge. It did. So, he looked carefully at the fuses, and it was a fuse!
The photo below on the left hand side shows the rocks in the alleys and on the right hand side, the alleys with the rocks removed. Picking up the rocks will make seeding the vineyard alley easier.
No matter what, the vineyard is rocking our world!

All About Trellising (But Were Afraid To Ask)

Our focus now is about the trellising for our vineyard. We knew early on that we wanted to use cane pruned, vertical shoot positioning (VSP) for our vineyard. This is the easy part. The difficult part is to figure out exactly how many line posts, catch wires, endposts, and other assorted parts are needed for our trellising choice.
I found some very good references on the Internet to fill in the large gaps in our preparation. (They can't put anything on the Internet that isn't true.)
Nick Dookozlian, in Wine Grape Varieties in California, wrote about Trellis Selection and Canopy Management. This article is 6 pages long and is a good introduction to the various trellising options. Although it is specific for California regions, it is a good reference for the various types of trellises that can be constructed and what they are used for. Trellis systems such as VSP, Smart-Dyson, Smart-Henry, and Scott-Henry are all nicely illustrated. Below is an example of VSP:¹

Another excellent reference from Prof. Paul Domoto, Iowa State University, Department of Horticulture is entitled Constructing a Vineyard Trellis. This is a 67 page slide deck with copious photos and succinct text that will walk you through trellis construction with all the materials you will need. For example, there is a slide on trellising hardware such as crimping sleeves, tension indicator spring, steel brace pins, wire vise, high tension wire, wire strainer and strainer handle. We want to use movable catch wires, so I emailed Prof. Domoto about the specifics and he kindly sent me the photo shown on the right.² Lastly, another good reference is a 13-page article written by Prof. Thomas Zabadal of Michigan State University on Engineering a Modern Vineyard Trellis.³
References:
1. Nick Dookozlian, Wine Grape Varieties in California, "Trellis Selection and Canopy Management", http://ucanr.org/sites/intvit/files/24348.pdf
A good reference for the various types of trellises that can be constructed and what they are used for.
2. Paul Domoto, "Constructing a Vineyard Trellis", Department of Horticulture, Iowa State University. Presented at the Iowa Grape Growers Conference, January 26, 2002.
http://viticulture.hort.iastate.edu/info/pdf/domototrellis.pdf
Very good presentation with pictures.
3. Thomas Zabadal, "Engineering a Modern Vineyard Trellis", Department of Horticulture, Michigan State University.
http://www.grapes.msu.edu/pdf/cultural/engineerTrellis.pdf
A good reference for the specific materials needed to construct a trellis including the cost of the materials.