Soil Selection factors Grapevines are capable of growing on a wide range of soil types however many soil factors are critical for a vineyards success. Soils are the result of the weathering of bedrock. New York soils are geologically young and the result of the weathering of glacial material. Glaciers and there melt water produced large rivers and lakes which left deep deposists of water sorted sands and gravels which are the parent material for the soils in some of New York s most important grape growing regions. The traditional Concord grape production region of Lake Erie is largely founded on deep gravel beaches of a large post glacial lake.
Long Island is essentially a giant sand bar left behind by a retreating glacier.
These soils have high water holding capacity, and so long as they have not been allowed to erode tend to have good depth of rooting. The remaining soils of the finger Lakes and Hudson Valley are acid, silty clay loams with moderate to shallow rooting depth. Many of these have suffered considerable sheet erosion. Soil analysis was made with a 1km scale database. The soil suitability map presented here is a combination of other soil suitability maps.