Smart vineyard: rooting without problems

Recommendation points

• Rooting in the open air
• Indoor rooting according to Radchevsky
• How to plant grapes correctly
• Cutting (Chinese way)

Many people believe that growing grapes is not an easy task, requiring a lot of time, effort, skill and experience. It’s a delusion. Having mastered simple care techniques and choosing the right varieties, you can get decent harvests with minimal labor costs. In the article we will talk about the main methods of propagation of this most valuable crop, consider indoor cuttings and growing seedlings from cuttings in the open air, figure out how to properly graft grapes on wild stocks and how to propagate it by the Chinese method of cutting.

It is obvious that the basis of a successful vineyard is the right choice of a variety, ideally suited to the climatic conditions of your area, as well as matching your wishes and possibilities. We talked about this in more detail in the article “Smart vineyard: the basics of the basics”.

As already noted, today there is a problem of buying high-quality grape seedlings, since resellers trade in the market, and not every gardener has the opportunity to visit the farms of experienced specialists. However, do not despair, today winegrowers have developed several effective methods of growing grape seedlings from cuttings. And cuttings can be cut anywhere, for example, from a vine you like from a neighbor in the country, or, for a fee, in any vineyard. But it will definitely be cheaper than buying a pig in a poke on the market..

Cuttings can be cut in autumn, when the young vine is already ripe, as well as in winter or spring. Correctly cut (3-4 buds) and rooted cutting by the end of summer can turn into a good annual bush. The main rooting problem is root rotting from lack of air or drying of shoots from lack of moisture. Let’s figure out how to root the stalk correctly in order to avoid such troubles..

Rooting in the open air

The vine does not stop its activity even in winter, at this time the plant breathes, the root system grows, and this is spent on energy and reserves of nutrients from the wood. Therefore, the optimal time for cutting cuttings is autumn, from the beginning of leaf fall to the very frost, while the grapes are still full of strength. Of course, you can root a stalk cut before sap flow in spring, but the chances in this case are significantly reduced.

Cut the cuttings 30-40 centimeters long into 3-4 buds and no less than a pencil thickness. Thinner bushes will turn out to be weak, and they will root badly. You can make cuttings longer, but it will be inconvenient to work with them in the future.

After cutting off the cutting, do not keep it outdoors for more than a day, especially if the weather is warm – it will immediately begin to wake up and breathe, which means it will lose moisture. The stalk must be put into storage, that is, it must be dug in anywhere in the garden, the main thing is that it is not flooded. To do this, they dig a trench 25-30 centimeters deep, fill it with a 10-centimeter layer of sand of medium moisture, put cuttings and sprinkle it with earth. From above it is a good idea to cover this place with straw or fallen dry leaves. Here the cuttings will wait out the winter.

In the spring, when a positive average daily temperature is established, and this happens on average in early April, the cuttings are taken out of the shelter and cut with a sharp pruner. The lower cut is made under the kidney itself in the horizontal direction, and the upper cut is made two to three centimeters above the kidney obliquely, in the direction of the cut towards the antennae, so that water does not fall on the kidney. It should be noted that vine antennae are not located at every node (the node is the place of the future shoot, where the leaf and antennae are located). But it is in the antennae area that there are special membranes that protect the cutting from drying out. Therefore, when cutting cuttings, it is advisable to cut off those that will begin and end with antennae.

After pruning with pruning shears, pinch off the bud from below and furrow with a knife or scratch the bark of the cutting with a file by a third, or even half. In such wounds (incisions), wound tissue (callus) is formed, from which the rudiments of roots germinate rather quickly, and the root mass after such treatment is always much larger.

Cuttings prepared in the above way must be placed in a bucket and completely filled with water – to withstand a day. Experienced growers recommend adding a tablespoon of honey to the water, as it contains a large amount of various beneficial enzymes and growth stimulants. A bucket of cuttings should be placed in a cool place so that they do not suffocate..

After soaking, to accelerate the regrowth of roots, the lower part of the cuttings can be placed in a root stimulant solution (Biostim, Silk, Epin and others) for 2-3 hours. Such a measure is needed only for withered and weakened cuttings, and for well-developed cuttings it is optional..

Further, after all the above preparations, the cuttings can be planted in the school, that is, the place where the seedlings of the first year are grown. In the future, the main difficulty in the development of the cuttings will be that the buds always wake up before the roots (buds at 10 degrees, and roots at 15). And in spring this usually happens – the ground has not yet warmed up enough, and the air is already warm, so the shoot that needs water begins to grow first, and the roots have not yet grown, that is, moisture from the ground does not flow to it, as a result of which the cutting may die. What to do in this situation?

The best solution would be to speed up the heating of the soil by covering the school with polyethylene. In this case, it is most appropriate to organize a raised bed, which must be filled with a mixture of sand, soil, humus and sawdust of medium moisture in a one-to-one ratio. We close the garden bed on all sides with plastic wrap – it turns out a kind of greenhouse. Cuttings in such a school are planted directly through the film, through holes pierced by a sharp peg. When the shoots reach a height of 50 cm, the polyethylene must be removed to avoid overheating.

Watering plants in a school can only be at the root, otherwise the seedlings can get sick with dangerous fungal diseases. It is necessary to feed and spray the cuttings in the same way as for adult grapes. We will consider in detail the technology of spraying and feeding grapes in the following articles..

Of course, despite all the efforts, some of the cuttings will root badly, and some will die altogether, since not everything depends only on the gardener’s efforts – sometimes the weather presents us with unpleasant surprises, and there are varieties that take root worse than others, for example, Delight. For such cases, you can use another rooting method..

Indoor rooting according to Radchevsky

If you want to grow just a few seedlings for yourself, then it is better to use the method developed by the famous winegrower Peter Radchevsky. This method allows you to get more powerful and better rooted bushes. The survival rate of cuttings in this case will be much higher..

It is necessary to harvest cuttings in the same way as for rooting in the open air, that is, they need to be cut in the fall and stored in a trench with sand until spring. At the beginning of March, we take out the cuttings from the trench, cut it off with a pruner, but in this case, the lower bud may not be removed.

Then we soak them entirely in water for two days at an air temperature of 15-18 degrees. After that, we place the cuttings in liter jars filled with water for 2-3 centimeters. We put the cans on the window, preferably on a higher stand so that the cold air does not cool the water. It is necessary to place the cuttings on the sunny side, and it will be even better if it is possible to supplement them with fluorescent lamps.

With a successful combination of circumstances, shoots appear on the 10-12th day, and the roots about ten days after them. But in this case, there are no problems, since the shoots suck in water from the can (of course, it needs to be refilled as needed). If you have cuttings of this variety, which does not take root well, it is necessary to immerse their lower part in a root growth stimulator for 3-4 hours before placing in jars..

As soon as you notice that the roots are beginning to grow, you can prepare to plant the cuttings in bags, for these purposes it is most convenient to use liter “tetrapaks” from milk or juice, in which the top is cut off, and holes are made from below for drainage.

We take out the stalk from the jar and leave one of the strongest shoot on it. We prepare the soil as follows: we take sand, earth and well-ripened humus in equal shares. It should be noted that these components should be mixed in a moderately moist state, that is, when the lump of the mixture compressed in the hand does not disintegrate, but also does not stain the skin. If the soil is waterlogged, then the young root system of seedlings may simply suffocate.

Pour a 10 cm layer of soil at the bottom of the bag, put the handle and fill it up to the very top. There is no need to compact the earth – the soil itself will settle quickly enough. It is important that the stalk sticks out 10–15 cm above the surface. Then you just have to keep an eye on the young seedlings and in no case overmoisten them. It is necessary to water infrequently and little by little, observe that excess water does not accumulate at the bottom, but flows out through the drainage holes. Shoots will grow quickly enough, they can be pinched over the second or third leaf.

Rooted cuttings can be planted immediately in a permanent place on a personal plot in the first decade of May. When planting from a package, the roots are practically not damaged, the growth of the vine is not inhibited, and by the end of summer your seedling can reach a height of 2-2.5 meters, and next year, with proper care, you can try the first harvest.

How to plant grapes correctly

Another way of rooting grapes is grafting onto the finished root. Most often, for these purposes, wild-growing grapes with a powerful root system that are resistant to pests and diseases are used..

The most common method of grafting is by grafting a lignified cuttings (scion) into the green shoot of wild grapes (rootstock). For this, the stock and the scion are prepared accordingly..

Cuttings or scions are cut in the fall and stored in a trench until spring in the same way as for the above-described rooting methods. In April, the cuttings are taken out, washed well, soaked in water for a day and hidden in the refrigerator in a damp cloth or in a bag. So they are stored until the moment of vaccination, and it will come only in June.

The stock is also prepared in the fall – the bush is instilled in for the winter, and in the early spring it is cut off in the place where you need to graft. It is best to do this almost at the very ground – strong young shoots, as a rule, come from here. In June, the lower part of the green shoots of the rootstock reaches just the required diameter and stiffness..

During the grafting process, two basic rules must be observed: firstly, the knife must be very sharp, and secondly, the diameter of the rootstock and the scion must match almost perfectly.

Then we cut the scion above the bud, 4–5 cm below it, make a sharp wedge. Cut the rootstock over the second or third leaf, about five centimeters above the node (this is somewhere in the middle of the internode). The cut should be transverse and perfectly even, then here we make a split to the depth of the scion wedge. It is necessary to insert the scion into the stock so that their buds are on different sides of the shoot.

It is necessary to cover up the vaccine very carefully; you can use a stretching electrical tape or thin strips of polyethylene for these purposes. The wrapping should start slightly above the rootstock leaf and end just below the bud of the scion. If after 15–20 minutes a drop of juice appears on the cut of the scion, it means that you did everything right.

We put on a plastic bag on top of the grafting site and not tightly tie it just above the rootstock sheet. We wrap this whole “structure” in several layers of newspaper in the form of a tube, and from the north side we make a window for observation in it. It is important that the polyethylene is always foggy, if it is dry, it is necessary to carefully unwind and moisten everything.

When you notice that the scion shoot has begun to grow, you need to cut the bag and cut off the excess newspaper so that the sprout can break through. Further, the entire structure is securely fixed so that it does not break from the wind or careless touch.

For the early ripening of the graft, it is necessary to cut off all leaves and shoots from the rootstock so that they do not pull excess juice, and remove any shading from the grafting site. In mid-August, the top of the scion is pinched, this provides accelerated ripening of the wood. When covering the vine for the winter, it is extremely important not to bend it at the grafting site so that all your efforts do not go to waste..

Cutting (Chinese way)

This method is the most reliable and problem-free, although it is rarely used for rooting the vine. A cut is a branch dug into the ground without separating it from the mother bush. In this case, it is important to bury the vine strictly horizontally, and bring the crown out. A branch buried in this way gives the greatest number of shoots, under which roots are formed, each of which can become a separate seedling. Furrowing or notching the bark from the underside of the branch significantly speeds up root formation.

The buried cuttings are mulched and watered, and in the fall they are separated from the mother bush, cut into separate seedlings, which can be planted already in permanent places. Having dug in last year’s long vine, you can get a dozen full-fledged seedlings with roots after a while. In this case, it is important not to cover it with dense earth, so that young shoots have the opportunity to freely break through to the sun..

As you can see, there is nothing difficult in rooting grapes. Therefore, there is no need to buy what is unknown on the market. It is much cheaper, and most importantly, more reliable, to find an opportunity to cut cuttings of the variety you like and grow seedlings from them yourself. In the next article, we will tell you how to properly plant rooted cuttings in a permanent place, how to wisely prepare pits or trenches, how to organize trellises so that you do not have problems with the power of the bushes and their formation in the future. To be continued…