Secondary Buds Are Fruitful

So I mentioned in the last blog about the frost we had. It killed alot of the crop we had comming - thank goodness we dont get those very often.

Often what happens after that primary bud is killed by the frost is that the secondary bud grows. In fact even with out a frost its common for many varieties to push out both the primary and secondary buds which turn into 2 shoots from the same node.

This is where crop adjustment happens and if you have both the primary and secondary bud growing into shoots then you go along the rows and pull off all those secondaries.

Generally speaking the secondary buds are not fruitful but some varieties, particularly the hybrids, often have fruitful secondary buds. That is worth noting is the capacity of some vines to still produce a crop on the secondary buds.

Usually the crop is much smaller on secondary buds but its better than nothing. This is one thing I like about the hybrids we grow. Lots of them can produce a decent crop on the secondary bud. The photo above is L'Acadie Blanc and you can see the primary bud/shoot died from the frost but the secondary is growing and fruitful with two visible flower clusters. Its a bit behind where we should be for growth but there is lots of time to catch up.

Foch and Leon Millot will produce on secondary buds as well.