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[Ginda Fisher <list@ginda.us>]

I've had this Canadice grape vine for years, and I've only gotten fruit once.  In every other year, it grows flower buds, and then they abort and fall off without blooming.  I've attached a photo of one that fell off at the bottom of this post.

Lon suggested it might be too much nitrogen (the vine abuts the lawn, which gets corn gluten every spring and fall) and I wonder if the problem might be aggravated by less-than-full sunlight.  It only gets a few hours of direct sunlight, and gets light high shade the rest of the day.

The one year that it did fruit, the fruit was good, but didn't knock my socks off.  It tasted a little better than good grapes at the supermarket, but not nearly as good as my uncle's "New York Muscat", nor as interesting as plain old Concord.  So I want to give up on it and try something else.

Here are my questions:

1)  Can I plant another grape where a grape was?

2)  What's the best way of removing this one to make way for a new one?  Or should I try to graft?

3)  Any other ideas what the problem is?

4)  What cultivars might be less susceptible to this problem, and taste better than supermarket grapes?

Thanks for any help,

Ginda

eastern MA, zone 6