Planting New Vines from Spring Cuttings

In the spring I blogged about growing grape vines from cuttings for fall planting. You can go back to the previous blog to see how the cuttings progressed from May to present, - here is the May 2021 post and here is the June 2021 post. 

We grow the cuttings in a 1 foot x 1 foot container in 2 inch by 2 inch sleeves. This gives us 36 vines per square foot incubator. The propegation rate was approximately 75% and would have been higher but we lost probably 10% due to the intense 44c heat we had in early July. However, of the cuttings that did grow into vines, we only planted out the best vines from each group. The result is about 65% of the cuttings were strong enough with big enough roots to move into the field. The other ones that were smaller and weaker are going to be left in the incubator and grown bigger next year and will be planted out in the field next fall.

In mid September the vines had achieved good growth over the summer and were ready to move from the nursery to the field. Here is a picture of the group of vines that have been extracted from the incubator. The roots are somewhat tangled and have to be gently separated. Once separated they can be planted in the ground. 

This picture below shows the both the top growth and root growth of the vine that occurred from the cutting planted in may. All in all we planted out 1500 row feet this past week and we have another 1500 row feet to get planted in the next few weeks. Next spring we will plant 3000 more row feet of vines.

Fires are Holding

 Truely amazing how fast things change from a few small fires in the distance that were not really a threat to massive fires just a few kilometers away and evacuation.

In the past few days winds have bern in our favour and the fires have not advanced much and fire crews have been able to fortify defences. So we are downgraded to evacuation alert.

We were able to come back and first priority is clearing a bigger perimeter around the buildings. Going to miss those nice trees around the house but weve got lots fire wood for next year.

It is still very smoky and you can barely see the trees on the next hill and lots of ash falling ..can see it on the truck canopy and the vines.

On the bright side the grapes are comming along pretty good with some approaching bunch closure so they will be turning colour soon. And there is a possibility of rain in the next week so we hope for a good soaker and no lightning.

Forest Fires Are Threatening

 Arrow Lakes Vineyard is located in the central Kootenays of British Columbia. Logging is the primary vocation in the area and the vineyard was carved out of a forested area and for the most part the entire region is forested. 

This year like so many in the recent past has seen threat of forest fires but this year is different as we have fires all around us. Just 7 days ago a few small fires started due to lightning strikes in remote areas and in such a short time the have each grown into huge fires over 3000 hectares and moved quickly to become threatening. There is a huge fire just a few kms away across Arrow Lakes. We have another big one to the south about 15km that is slowly coming up the lake shore towards the vineyard. And we have a new fire started from lighting strike about 12km to the north of the vineyard. Here is a picture of the fire on the east side of Arrow Lakes and a map view of the two big fires.

The area including the vineyard is under evacuation order. Our thoughts go out to our friends and neighbors and those displaced from the fires and the police and fire responders.

Grapes are Looking Good

 Most spectacular spectrum of weather weve had this year breaking records for cold in May and heat in June. The first 2 weeks into July have continued the hot trend with day time temperatures ranging from 32c to 37c. This is very high heat for our location and has brought the grapes along very quick. 

We are about 1 week ahead of normal now and with this high heat having good moisture is importants and weve lucked out with a few big down pours of rain in early July. Pretty good conditions so far and we should see these turning red in early August.

Bloom Time and Fruit Set

 Its June 24th and we went from May as one of the coolest Mays we've recorded in 13 years to June which is comming in as one of hottest Junes in 13 years. 

Really quite remarkable that the vines have comecalong so fast and now are into bloom with some varieties at the end and others just getting started.

The Castel and Leon Millot are just finishing and many clusters have fruit set. The Marechal Foch and L'Acadie Blanc are 50-75% through bloom and the Evangeline and Petite Milo are just getting started.

Here is how they look,

Castel

Leon Millot

 

Marechal Foch

L'Acadie Blanc

Starting Grape Cutting - update

 So we started the cuttings outside at the beginning of May..see the link to the earlier blog. The cuttings leafed out and were growing well but we had a nasty frost and several of the new buds got damaged.

What surprised me was how the cuttings kept pushing more secondary buds and the vines have lots of leaves popping. 

Checking to see if there is root development and the Foch is looking great (photo). I expect yge others are doing well too. 

Once those roots get to be about 3-4 inches, the shoots will really start to grow and they will be well on thier way. With any luck we'll get those new vines out into the vineyard by the end of July.

First Signs of Flowering

 From cold May to warm June and just like that the vines have caught up to where they should be and are on track for bloom in the last week of June.

Some flowers clusters show signs of bloom on the way with an occasional single flower in bloom - like the Marechal Foch seen here. Most are 7-14 days away to bloom yet.

The growth has been strong and significant rain in June which is good as the long range forcast looks like hot and dry weather on the way.

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. 

Vines Are Leafing Out

So its been a cool May again, like 2020 but colder, and with frost and the vines have been slower to leaf out but they are coming along. We had a week of warm weather starting the end of may into June and that really brought the vines growing. The L'Acadie Blanc was among the earliest to bud out and leaf out which is rather remarkable as in years gone by they are no earlier than other varieties. Photo from June 5th. L'Acadie also suffered some frost damage, but about the same as the other varieties.

It may be that L'Acadie have the propensity to bud out in soil temperatures that are a bit cooler than the other varieties and with the cool May, the soil has stayed a bit cooler than usual - slowing the budding of other varieties like Marechal Foch and Petite Milo but yet warm enough to start the L'Acadie to push buds.

Just 1 or 2 degrees in soil temperature can make the difference. Several years back we had dozens of Leon Millot plants potted that were dormant and on shelves stored for the winter in our machine shed. In the spring as the temperature warmed up the vines on the top self at about 6' high started to push buds while none of the vines on the bottom shelf were showing any signs of pushing buds. It was quite remarkable to see as there was only a few degrees difference in the temperature from 1' off the ground to 6' off the ground on the shelves, but enough to warm the soil enough to get the top vines active.

Regardless we are in June now and all varieties are leafed out and catching up to L'Acadie. At this point we can start to gauge the crop potential based on the flower clusters observed.

But this is just speculation, we really wont get a solid picture of what the crop may be until early-mid July which is after flowering and fruit set. 

Cold Start and Frost in May

 So with the month of May behind us we are hoping for some serious heat in June. May was really cool and everything is delayed by a week right now. In the last 10 years we would usually record a temperature of about 13c to 13.5c and that gets the vines leafing out by the last week of May.  

This May we recorded an average temperature of  12.0 and we had a late spring frost too of -2 on May 19.  There were records broken from cold temperatures all over and even Penticton recorded -1. As the vines were delayed a bit not all was lost but the frost still killed off alot of the primary buds. The secondary buds didnt get damaged and are pushing and there is some flower clusters there too but not the size or amount that exists on the primary buds. These secondary buds are also delayed and should be at the 5-6 leaf stage right now, but we have to leave most of them as replacement canes witch will become spurs at the next pruning. Last time we had a late spring frost like this was about 11 years ago and was -1 and really didn't cause much damage - so this time its an anomaly.

The crop will be smaller this year but already this starts to set things up for something interesting. Fewer buds and canes transfers more growth to those remaining canes and flower clusters - and its events like these that set one vintage apart from another.

Hoping now for a warm June and the flowering to happen before July as this would bring the progress back on track. We've had some high heat in late May and entering June and the vines are almost back on track.