Propagation Experiment Results

I did a propagation experiment this spring with seedless concord and concord cuttings. I put a third of the cuttings in some moist newspaper and put them in a warm place by a heating vent. I put a third upside down outside underground with the bottoms of the cuttings near the surface. I put another third of the cuttings in a vase with water covering about half of the length of the cutting.

After a month and a half, I planted the cuttings outside. I noticed that every single cutting that was put in moist newspaper had a callous at the bottom. The ones that were upside down underground did not have any callous or root formation. Some of the cuttings in the vase rooted and some didn't. It was about a 30% root rate. I planted them all outside and only about half of the vase cuttings survived, while none of the underground cuttings survived. Amazingly, every single cutting that was put in newspaper survived and had a lot of growth the first year. From now on, I'll do only this method for propagation. It had a nearly 100% success rate!

Update

Well, it's November third now and the vines' leaves are all yellow and falling off. I had a harvestless year this year in order to get my vines pruned correctly and growing the way I want them to. I had my seedless concord and regular concord on top wire cordon which I really didnt like. It made the canopy too hard to manage and it was hard to get renewal canes to grow correct that high up. So, I cut the vines back to a foot above the ground and let little shoots push out and grow up to a 3 foot wire. I will be training them to a VSP (vertical shoot positioning) system that I think will work much better. I am slightly worried that the concords will have such a trailing growth habit that they wont grow upwards even if they are trained, but I'll have to wait until next spring to find out. I plan on using catch wires every foot above the fruiting wire to train them properly. Below is a picture of all the growth that occurred this year. It's amazing how much grew!

The two smaller yellower vines are Noiret vines. I plan on growing those two wine grapevines to produce my own wine. I also plan on putting 8 Corot Noir and 8 Noiret at another location in my yard. My plan is to grow both using both cane and spur pruning to see what pruning method to use. I will also make wine from both varietals. I will pick which one I like the best, and then remove the other varietal to make room for more canes of the one I prefer.

Next year I should be able to get a full crop from my seedless concord and my concord. They had all year with no fruit this summer to get ready. :)

Spring 2014 and Propagation Experiment

Well, I got tired of dealing with unruly canopies and leaf shading with the top wire cordon trellis system, so I decided to experiment with vertical shoot positioning with my concords. On March 28, I cut back all of the vines to a foot above the ground leaving only a trunk. Hopefully in the spring, the vine will send shoots out that I can train to VSP.

Additionally, I ordered 3 Noiret that will be coming May 5. Excited to experiment with some wine grapes on a VSP. I just have to find a place to put them.

Finally, I am doing an experiment in propagation. I am putting several grape cuttings from the concord and seedless concord in a pot with water, in newspaper in a black back by a heater, and dug upside down in a trench outside. I am going to see which is easiest to propagate. I'll be sure to get the results on the blog in about a month.

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!