Harvesting fresh, juicy grapes straight off a grapevine means literally enjoying the fruits of your labor. Grape production, on a large or small scale, begins with a single grapevine. Rather than purchase a plant from a nursery, you can take a cutting from a proven performer and grow a clone of the parent grapevine. This is called grape propagation.
Grapes can be propagated in several ways, but the easiest and most common method is through dormant cuttings. Each year grapes should be pruned to ensure a healthy crop the following year, the best time to prune them is in their dormant season. The dormant season is from Fall to Winter and the growing season is from Spring to Fall. Newly planted grapevines will need a couple years of pruning during the growing season to make them strong enough to hold the full weight of a harvest to ensure they don't get damaged. Once your grapevines are a few years old, your grapes will be ready for harvest in the fall. Cabernet Sauvignon grapevines typically produce 6-7 pounds of fruit per grapevine once the grapevine has matured. To collect dormant grapevine cuttings to use for propagation, you wait until after the vines have gone dormant to collect propagation material, this is at the end of winter.
The ideal size of a cutting to use for propagation is just slightly larger than a pencil in diameter. You want the length of your cuttings to be about 8-18 inches in length with 2-5 buds per cutting. You want the bottom of the dormant cuttings cut at an angle right below the lowest bud, leaving a ¼” gap from the bud. Having the bottom cut at an angle increases the surface area for your cuttings to absorb water and grow faster. At the top of the cutting, make a flat cut that’s an inch or two above the highest bud. The extra length above the top bud protects that bud from anything harmful as it grows. The bottom end produces roots while a top end produces shoots, so it's important to plant the bottom of the cuttings down or else the cutting will die and rot in the ground. This is another reason why you make the bottom cut at an angle and the top cut flat, to differentiate the two.
If you don't plant right away, store your dormant cuttings in a cold moist environment until the beginning of the growing season. Shortly before the beginning of the growing season, the grape cuttings should be calloused to induce root growth or dipped in rooting hormone and placed in the soil.
To callus your cuttings, put them in a warm moist environment around 85 degrees Fahrenheit. This will start the base of the cutting begin to heal and develop into roots. If done incorrectly the cuttings can either mold or sprout prematurely.
If you can't put your cuttings in an 85 degree Fahrenheit environment then you can dip your cuttings into root hormone growth powder or liquid and then dip the base of your cuttings in water. After 4-6 weeks you'll start seeing root growth and once you see multiple roots that are an inch long, you can plant your cutting into the soil.
The two best methods for the root growing process that i've found is growing roots in a glass or bottle in a warm windowsill or planting them straight into soil after callusing your cuttings. To grow your cuttings through the glass bottle method, follow the step by step procedure found below.
Growing Roots: Glass/Bottle Method
Materials:
- Pruners
- Measuring Tape
- Sharp knife
- Rooting hormone powder or liquid
- Tall Planting containers
- Coarse sand or perlite
- Sphagnum peat moss
- Watering tool
1. Take your dormant grapevine cutting and dip the bottom of the cutting in a rooting hormone powder or liquid for a few seconds. The hormone will stimulate root growth. If you prefer a more natural method to stimulate root growth, you can use cinnamon powder instead to stimulate root growth and it's a great fungicide as well.
2. Place the cuttings in a tall glass or bottle, add enough lukewarm water to completely cover the angle-cut bottom ends of each cutting.
3. Leave the cuttings in the water for about 6 weeks or until they develop multiple 1-inch long roots. Change the water frequently with fresh water so the water never appears dirty.
That's the glass or bottle method to stimulate root growth but the next steps for planting your grapevine cuttings apply to whichever method you choose.
Now that you've started the root growing process, plant each cutting in its own planting container filled with a potting mixture containing three parts coarse sand or perlite and one part sphagnum peat moss. If you don't want to use sand/perlite and peat moss, you can use any nutrient-rich dirt you have.
Place the cutting in the container, and bury the lowest bud in the soil, leaving only the top buds visible above the potting mixture. One-gallon, tall planting containers work well because they remove the need to re-pot the cuttings before moving them outdoors. Planting each cutting in a separate container eliminates competition for water, space, and nutrients.
Next, water the potting mixture, or soil, as needed to keep it barely moist but not wet. Don't water too frequently because watering keeps roots cool, which will limit continued root development.
Transplant the new plants outdoors when the weather warms in April and May, plant them at the same soil depth they were in their containers. However, if the last frost has passed, you can skip planting them in a one-gallon container and plant them outside right away.
Dormant cuttings should have an 80% or greater success rate. Since not all cuttings will likely grow, it is best to grow about 10 percent more than the number of vines you need.
I hope this was helpful to everyone who's starting to grow their own grape plants! I'd love for everyone to go onto my forum page and update me along with everyone else about how you're doing in the growing process.
If leave comments or questions and I'll get back to you shortly.
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