Mid-Summer

So it just passed the first day of summer here in Pennsylvania, and the grapevines are going like mad. The 4th year Concord was hit by the freeze really hard back in spring, so the grape clusters are few and far between. The seedless Concord has a ton of smaller berries that are taking a while to swell to full size. I might have overcropped a bit, but I need to make up for the lacking 4th year concord harvest.

Fruitset

Finally got my camera out this year to take some pictures. The first few are from around the yard. They are green beans, sage, spearmint, lavender, and jalepeno peppers. The date on the camera is incorrect, so disregard that. :)

The next is some a picture of my seedless concord, my regular concords, and the fruit of the seedless concord. I didn't take many pictures of the regular concord because the fruit is not as impressive on account of the early frosts this year. Overall, the seedless concord is doing fantastic, and the other concords are doing pretty well, although a lot of fruit was lost this Spring. The second year concord is producing some strong canes on the wire for next year. I left one or two clusters on it just to see how the fruit is going to turn out.

Flowering and Berry Set

The vines all flowered about a week ago, and berries are almost all completely set. Some of the grapes are about 2 mm in diameter. I hope to get some photos up soon. The berries have set about 2 weeks earlier than last year.

Budbreak!

The little 'splits' I described were in fact the beginnings of bud swell. The buds expanded and now budbreak has ocurred. Tiny leaves can be seen protruding from each node.







Interestingly, due to the extremely unseasonably warm weather, the buds broke almost exactly a month before last year. Last year's pictures of budbreak were on April 24th, while this year, they are March 22. Also to note, the seedless Concord's buds are about a day later than the Concord's. It's not a real difference, but that slight difference in genetics is enough to influence the budbreak by a day!

Vine Bleeding

Today, due to the unseasonably warm temperatures, the vines are now bleeding water from the cuts where I pruned. When the temperatures rise, the fluids in the vine start to move, and the vine breaks dormancy. From every cut point, there was a large drop of water hanging. The vine has officially become active. Some buds appear to have very slightly 'split'. It's hard to tell if they are actually split, or I am just imagining it.

Propagation / Pruning Pictures

This is going to be a longer post. It'll contain pictures of the propagating vines for this Spring, and pictures of the recently pruned vines.

Propagation is a very effective way to multiply grapevines. Grapevines may be grown from seeds or cuttings from last year's growth. The seeds may not be genetically identical to the parent, and have a low germination rate. However, cuttings are somewhat easy to propagate and grow faster than from seed. This is done by taking the canes produced from the previous year's growth and cutting them to about three buds long. The cut should be taken just above the top bud you want to use, and just below the bottom bud you want to use. Then, the two lowest buds on the cutting are picked off, leaving only one bud at the top for the energy of the cutting to grow into. The bottom of the cutting is placed in warm water heated by a basic heatpad, which will allow roots to form at the base of the cutting.



The above picture shows a three bud cutting with only the top bud left. Its important to place the cuttings in the correct orientation. If they are placed upside down,the roots and bud will burst upside down and the plant will not survive.



This picture is the vase containing all of the cuttings. I am propagating seedless Concord this year. This is then placed on a heatpad to keep the water warm which will promote the bottom of the cuttings to produce roots, while the top is still cooler and will budbreak slower. This will allow for more growth of roots which will be able to provide enough water and nutrients for the growing cutting. The rocks are simply to allow a buffer zone between the heatpad and the water so the point where the cuttings touch the bottom isn't directly in contact with the heatpad. I'll keep posting as this process continues and I'll be sure to report any updates.



This above picture is a photo of the now - second year Concord. It made the top wire last year, but i pruned off some of the top to allow growth to come from thicker wood.



This photo is the seedless Concord. It is easily seen how much growth occurred last year. I also pruned off several laterals from the main trunk.



This last picture is the fourth year Concord. I pruned off so much growth to leave only two canes to produce for this year.

Spring Pruning / Propagation

It's early March, which means time for pruning! I just completed the pruning on all three vines vines and I'm really looking forward to this year. This is the first year I plan on leaving a full crop load on my 4th year Concord, and I'm expecting to leave a little fruit on the seedless Concord.

The first year Concord was really easy to prune. It made the top wire, but not by much. I cut off some of the smaller shoots from the top and left 5 buds near the top of the growing trunk. I will use 2 for one side of the vine, 2 for the other, and 1 for a renewal spur.

The seedless Concord was pretty easy to prune as well. There were a lot of laterals, which made for some decent cuttings. (I'll talk about cuttings a little later). I left 8 buds on the left cane, and 12 buds on the right cane, along with one bud at the 'fork' of the canes just for good measure. (For a total of 21 buds). I'll probably leave about one grape cluster alternating shoots because of how vigorous it was last season. I might be able to get a little crop out of it this second year (which is little bit of a risk considering most vines shouldn't crop until the third year).

The fourth year Concord was a pain to prune. There were shoots going everywhere from last seasons growth, along with the year before it. I didn't know how to set up cane pruning the previous years that well, so it was kind of a mess when I tried to basically spur prune it. This led to uneven growth, along with some overcropping. This year, I left one cane on the left side with 13 buds (I picked off some of the buds because they were too close together). The right cane extends from the growth from two years ago from the right side and reaches towards the middle of the plant. There were no canes extending from the trunk for a cane to the right, so I just selected this one. It has 10 buds, and extends about six inches past the trunk. I expect to leave all clusters this year for a full fruit load. I'm so excited.

I'll post some more about the seedless Concord cuttings I am propagating the next post, along with how I did it.

Pruning Plans

Budswell for me occurred last year on April 10, and March 30 for others around my area. Although it's better to prune very near your budswell date, I feel that pruning a little sooner, like March 1 will be fine. The very cold temperatures from winter will be mostly over by then, and I will be around anyway if a late frost hits my vines. So, there's no need to delay budbreak by any reasonable time from late pruning. Therefore, it's only about 2 weeks until pruning time.

I checked out the vines today, and they seem to be doing just fine, with minimal winter damage if any at all.

I found that the seedless concord that will be entering its second year has two great canes to allow growth. In fact, one of the canes looks large and vigorous enough to allow for a very small crop this year (maybe about one cluster for some of the shoots). The other cane is quite smaller so I don't think I will fruit much at all on that shoot. There are quite a number of lateral shoots coming from the trunk that will be cut off (about 8, one of which is about 6 feet long!). Three of these laterals may be thick enough to allow for some seedless concord propagation. I plan on showing my progress throughout the propagation. I will be able to get about 6 to 8 cuttings to try and root. Overall, I will have about 21 main buds to allow growth from this season, as well as a few from the trunk to provide canes for fruit next year.

The regular concord that will be entering its second year has not made as much growth as the seedless. It made the top wire, but did not have any laterals which is also a sign of less vigor. However, any vine that makes it to the top wire its first year is still far beyond expectations. I will leave 4 buds near the wire to produce canes this year. I will not leave any crop due to its low vigor, and wait until its third year for crop.

The concord that will be entering its fourth year and is quite large with many shoots coming out of the old canes. Picking the two new canes for this year was quite difficult as it was even hard to see which canes belonged to which part of the vine. I picked a waterspout shoot that was exposed to sunlight for one cane that has emerged from the trunk at trellis level. This cane has 8 regularly spaced buds, with 9 close spaced buds. I will pick off every other close spaced bud for a total of 13 buds. There are no other canes close to the trunk that I can select for fruit this year, so I picked a vigorous cane about 10 buds long that emerges from the far right side of last years growth and is bent and extends towards the trunk. This will allow a good filling of canopy space. These two canes will give me about 23 fruiting buds which is slightly under what I wanted, but I probably overcropped last year so I want to leave fewer buds anyway.

When Will Budbreak Occur?

Budbreak varies from year to year. Last year, budswell occurred around April 11th. For a friend on the forums, his started to swell on March 30. The budswell date also depends on the variety of grape. Budbreak occurs about a week after budswell, and full noticeable leaves less than a week after that. So, less than three months away hopefully!

Update

Well, I got a decent harvest this year for my first set of grapes! I got a huge bowl full of Concord grapes after harvest a week into September. It's been a while since harvest, but I'm pretty sure it was only a week into the month because the bees were getting to the grapes. I wanted to pick them before they were destroyed.

I also go bird netting to protect the grapes after verasion which seemed to keep the birds out.



The first year concord barely seemed to get to the top wire, while the seedless concord was very vigorous and I will probably be able to get a small harvest out of it this fall. :)

I didn't update during the time of harvest because I was so excited to finally get grapes after three years of waiting. I've also been busy with graduating and such.