When I’m stuck in the house on a rainy day with nothing to do, it never fails that I pickup a book to read. Lately, I’ve been re-reading Lon Rombough’s The Grape Grower. I’m amazed by how much I’ve learned since I first bought this book. Reading it now, I’m thinking ‘oh yeah, it makes sense now’. If you don’t own this book or if you are looking for a great reference for growing grapes anywhere, this is it. Click on the image below to find out more about the book.
After noticing the small roots that had formed on all of my Prairie Star cuttings, I potted the vines in paper/cardboard tubes. I managed to get 6 of 6 vines to root. Now I’m waiting on some others…only time will tell. I will be posting pictures soon.
Well, it’s been almost three weeks since I started callusing a few grapevine cuttings. I’ve been checking them once per week and this past Sunday (4/12), I noticed that the buds had begun to swell and the cuttings themselves were swelling with the bark cracking. I wasn’t sure if this was a good thing or not.
This morning I checked the cuttings again and most of them have roots! I’m surprised at how fast they’ve gotten to this point. It’s like they went from nothing to roots skipping right past callusing. So today I plan to plant the cuttings in biodegradable pots and give them a good start indoors until it’s safe to plant them outdoors. In these parts (Stillwater, MN), that won’t be until about June 1st. I know from experience that we usually have a frost the third week of May sometime between the 19th and the 26th. So I generally will wait at least until the 26th before putting any new plants out.
Every year I feel I learn something new from my grapevines. This year has been no exception. The first few years after the vines became established, I found they did not seem to need much in the way of watering during the season. But with the semi-drought conditions of the past two years, I’ve realized that I need to pay more attention to the watering needs of my vines. In the last three weeks, I have used a homemade soaker hose to apply water to the vines and they seem to have responded nicely.
It should come as no surprise to me that the vines would respond to regular watering. I have been watching a maple tree in my yard the past couple of years and it has not grown too much. This past spring, I drove to fertilizer spikes in the ground on it’s dripline (which I have done in the past) and have watered it 2-3 times per week for at least 30 minutes at a time. The tree has responded extremely well. By mid-summer, I noted several shoots that had achieved 36″ of new growth! And many shoots had put on between 1 and 2 feet of new growth.
I guess I can sum up all of the above by saying that next spring I plan to install drip irrigation for my vines. Time will tell, but I think this is going to be the best for my vines in the long run.
I spent some time in the vineyard this afternoon tending to some maintenance issues I’ve had on my mind lately. I removed a few vines that were completely dead and moved a nursery vine in to replace one. I also tied a few vines back to the wire and trimmed off some shoots near the ground on my Frontenac vines.
So at this point, I have 6 Foch vines left from an original number of twelve. They’ve been slowly dying out as they either can’t take our winters (and this last one was bad) or they leaf out too early in the spring and get hit by frost. The 6 remaining vines are all pushing shoots from the ground (now about 6-9″).
I also removed two dead Valiant vines, one dead Frontenac vine (gophers did them both in) and the remaining Sabrevois which were all dead. I had a replacement for the Frontenac. At this point, I’m trying to come up with a plan for a few open spots in the vineyard. I’d like to acquire some more Marquette and Prairie Star vines. In the long run, I think these two vines can be stars and ultimately will produce best for me.
On the bright side, the Frontenac vines look good. The Prairie Stars are also coming along. At this point, I just need more of each. Check back for future updates on my progress this season.