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Green-Seeds.com
Fruits
& Others
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Growing grapes from Cuttings
 Grapes are very easy
to grow from cuttings. With proper care, a dormant cutting can be started
in the spring and by fall will give a vine large enough to bear a cluster
or two of fruit the next season. The important factors are proper care and
preparation of the cuttings. Grapes can be grown from two types of cuttings,
dormant or hardwood, and green cuttings. Dormant cuttings are the easiest
to handle, but green cuttings work in situations when it isn't possible
to use hardwood, such as for grapes that don't root easily from dormant
cuttings, or when green cuttings are all that are available.
DORMANT CUTTINGS
Dormant cuttings can
be taken any time after the vine has lost it's leaves until the buds begin
to swell in the spring. Cuttings are made from the new shoots (canes) that
grew the growing season that just ended. The best wood is the first one
to two feet of the base of the shoot where the buds are closest together,
but any healthy, well matured section of the cane will suffice. Ideal thickness
is pencil diameter up to about 3/4 inch thick. Thicker cuttings can be hard
to handle and thinner wood may not be mature, though thinner wood may be
acceptable if the variety has naturally small shoots. Avoid wood that is
soft and spongy and has a large pith. Best wood is dense and light green
inside with relatively small pith. (See Fig. 2) Cuttings should be 12 to
18 inches long, with the bottom cut off straight, right below the bud, and
the top cut diagonally, at least 1/2 inch above the bud to make it easy
to identify the top, insuring that the cutting will be planted right side
up.
Some growers make the
diagonal cut on the bottom. Either way works. There should be at least 3
buds (nodes) on the cutting, more if possible, though two bud cuttings may
serve in an emergency
Rooting occurs best
at the nodes, hence the advantage in having several nodes per cutting.
If you take your own
cuttings, choose clean, healthy wood with no discolorations from fungus
or other disease, though fungus disease (black rot, downy and powdery mildew,
and anthracnose) will not harm the cuttings if the wood well matured. Disinfect
such cuttings with a 5% chlorine bleach solution before growing them, to
keep disease from spreading into the nursery. Try to observe the vine in
bearing to be sure it is healthy - some virus diseases can reduce crop,
allowing the vine to grow more, so it looks big and vigorous when dormant,
but is unfruitful. Vines grown from cuttings of a virus-infected vine will
also have the virus. If possible, take cuttings after there has been enough
cold weather to kill any poorly ripened wood, to insure getting mature wood.
Bundle the cuttings with plastic twine or insulated wire that won't rot
or corrode and mark them with plastic or other rot-resistant material. Use
metal or plastic tags with embossed letters or permanent ink that won't
wash off in moist conditions.
STORING CUTTINGS 
Our cuttings arrive
packed for storage, allowing you to simply put them away until you are ready
for them.
When making your own
cuttings, wrap them in moist paper or pack them in material such as damp
peat, in a plastic bag.
Keep cuttings refrigerated
or store them in an unheated building, in the crawl space under the house.
Avoid places where they will freeze. Freezing, per se will not harm them,
but can take water out and dessicate them. The ideal temperature is 32-33o
F (0-1oC). Properly stored, cuttings can be held for as much as a year or
more.
Large quantities of
cuttings can also be stored by burying them in pits of sand (to prevent
waterlogging) on the north side of a building. They are buried upside down
with 6 -18 inches of sand over them, covered with tarps and boards. As spring
arrives, some or most of the sand is removed so the bottoms of the cuttings
warm and callus in preparation for planting (see callusing).
CALLUSING
Callus is the white
tissue that forms on cut surfaces of the cutting, and can also appear in
lines along the sides of the cutting. It is from callus that roots form.
Callus may not always
be obvious, but it must be there before roots develop. Once roots start,
they grow in cooler conditions than are needed for callus to form. A grape
cutting pushed into soil will just sit until the soil is warm enough for
callus to form, so it usually only grows a few inches the first year. But
by pre-callusing the cuttings before planting, they can grow much more than
they would otherwise, often enough to establish the trunk of the vine, if
not more.
A callused cutting planted
in it's permanent location, kept weeded, watered, and well fertilized, can
establish it's roots in place as it grows a top and can often grow enough
to allow it to bear a cluster or two the next season. This has been done
in commercial vineyards in Oregon. Nursery-grown bareroot vines have to
grow a year to re-establish their roots, before being trained up the second
year, and can finally start to bear the third year, a full year after a
cutting planted at the same time.
Before callusing, be
sure cuttings haven't dried in storage. Standing them in an inch or two
of water overnight will let them "refill," improving rooting.
There are several methods to callus cuttings, according to your situation.
While rooting hormone isn't absolutely necessary, it can hasten callusing
and increase the number of roots.
(see sources) used at medium strength.
Method 1. Small amounts
of cuttings can be callused by wrapping them in moist paper or sphagnum
in a black plastic bag. This is the way your cuttings arrive, so if they
have been stored properly, they are ready to callus. Put them in a warm
area that stays constantly at 80-85oF. The top of a refrigerator is a good
place as the waste heat from the condenser collects there. Callusing should
occur in one to two weeks. Buds may push and produce white sprouts, but
this isn't harmful, though care should be taken to avoid breakage as the
cutting must use energy to grow more shoots. Plant as soon as the cuttings
are callused and roots start to appear.
Method 2. Plant the
cuttings in a pot of a mix of 3 parts perlite to 1 part peat, by volume.
Set the pot on a heat mat.
Set to 85oF (25oC),
in a cool area, or even outdoors in a protected area. This heats the root
zone and encourages callusing, but the top of the cuttings, being in cool
air, will not push buds as readily. The idea is to get roots before buds
push too much so there is an existing root system to support the new growth
when it appears. Rooting occurs in one to two weeks in most cases. See sources
for a company that sells heat mats.
Method 3.
Plant the cuttings
in a one gallon black pot of the 3:1 perlite-peat mix and set it in a sunny
location where the pot can be warmed by the sun. The pot should be no larger
than one gallon as the warming effect of the sun will penetrate a larger
pot too slowly. Avoid excess watering as that will cool the mix and slow
rooting. This is a slower method, often taking as much as a month, and the
buds will often start to grow before the roots are formed, but it works
well enough for home use. .
Larger quantities of
cuttings can be bundled in lots of 50 - 100 and rooted in the 3:1 perlite
peat mix in benches with bottom heat (heat cables or hot water pipes) set
at 80 - 85oF (25oC) in the root zone. Ideally, beds should be outdoors or
in an unheated, or even refrigerated, room to retard sprouting of the buds
while the cuttings callus and root, as in method #2. This reduces the likelihood
of shoots that can break off during planting.
PLANTING
Cuttings callus and
root in a short time, so don't start callusing until the planting site is
ready so the cuttings can be planted immediately. Once cuttings have a ring
of callus on the base, or roots are starting to appear, it's time to plant
them.
Cuttings may be planted:
1. directly in the spot where you plan to grow the vine; 2. in a nursery
row where you can grow them until fall, then transplant the vine when it
is dormant; 3. in a pot. In the last case, you can start cuttings early
in the year, then transplant them into their permanent location from the
pot as spring advances, or even grow them in the pot all summer and set
them out in the fall, if fall planting is possible in your area.
If you lack means to
keep the young vines watered in the permanent location, it is better to
grow vines in a nursery or pot and transplant them as dormant vines, which
are able to take more stress when they are planted in the permanent location.
Plant cuttings with
half or more of their length in the soil to help protect them from dessication.
In very hot, dry areas the cuttings can be covered with a mound of loose
soil at first. Keep the soil loose and watch for buds breaking through.
When buds start to grow, pull the soil mound away from them.
If some of the roots
or shoots break during planting, it isn't a disaster, but avoid it if possible
as the cutting must expend energy to grow more. If white shoots die or rot
back a bit, new shoots will start from the base of the old shoot.
Water an inch or more
a week until the shoots get to six inches long, then start using a weekly
feeding of a balanced organic fertilizer, such as fish (mixed according
to directions) or a liquid chemical fertilizer such as 16-16-16. Before
the shoots are about 6 inches long, the roots are not developed well enough
to get full benefit from fertilizer. If you use drip irrigation, the fertilizer
can be applied in the water. Stop fertilizing by mid summer and reduce or
stop water soon after that to allow the vine to harden before frost.
I have used mycorrhizal
fungi with my grapes and find that these types of fungi, which associate
with the roots and help the plant take up nutrients, are a definite benefit
to the plants. They can be applied directly to the roots or watered in after
planting. Applying them to the roots before planting seems to have the most
effect. If you do use the fungi, stay with a strictly organic fertilizer
as chemical types will inhibit or destroy the fungi. See sources for more
information.
GREEN (SOFTWOOD) CUTTINGS
Green cuttings are used
mainly with grapes that do not root from dormant cuttings, such as varieties
derived from Vitis lincecumii or V. aestivalis (such as "Norton"),
or Muscadine grapes (Muscadinia rotundifolia), or when dormant cuttings
are not available. Muscadine grapes started from green cuttings have a success
rate of 70 to 80% versus 1 to 2 % from dormant cuttings. Green cuttings
can also be used to multiply a variety quickly, as noted farther on.
Make green cuttings
from any vigorously growing shoot. Avoid shoots that have stopped growing
and are starting to harden off and turn brown. Take cuttings as early as
possible in the spring to give the young vine extra time to harden off,
unless you can keep the vine in a greenhouse. Cuttings should be 4 to 6
inches (10 to 15 cm) long, with two or three leaves. Remove all but the
top leaf and cut that one in half if it is full size, but leave it alone
if it is a young, undersized leaf (See Fig. 5). Cuttings with no leaves
at all very seldom root.
Dip the green cutting
in rooting hormone
(see sources) and plant
in the same 3:1 perlite peat mix used for dormant cuttings. The ideal place
to plant is in mist bench with a heat cable in the bottom of it to hold
temperatures at 85oF (25oC) in the root zone. Done this way, the cuttings
will usually root in 6-9 days and be ready to pot up. Keep them under mist
or in high humidity for a few days until the new roots can keep the plant
from wilting. When held in a greenhouse and forced with extra fertilizer,
the new vine can itself provide material for more cuttings within two or
three weeks. With this system of using each new batch of rooted plants as
sources of more material, a few cuttings can become thousands in six weeks.
A simpler alternative
is to use a one gallon black plastic pot, with a clear plastic bag over
it, supported by wires.
This creates a humid
chamber that keeps the cuttings from wilting until they root. If the pot
is warmed by sunlight, rooting is slower since the pot cools at night and
may take three weeks to a month. If the pot is sent on a heat mat, to keep
the heat constant, rooting is faster.
Vines started from green
cuttings need more protection when set in the vineyard and should be surrounded
by a bottomless milk carton or other device to shade it until it can withstand
direct sunlight.
Either way you do it,
your new grapes will give you pleasure for as many years as you want.
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Green - Seeds Co., Ltd.
81/10B Ho Van Hue Street, Phu Nhuan District, Ward 9, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
Tel: +84 (8) 847 6901 - Fax: +84 (8) 844 1392 - Email: info@green-seeds.com
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