Growing Grapes Vines Using Late Fall Cuttings
You’ve just found a grape variety you’d like to have some of in your yard, but it’s late in the year and winter’s approaching. Can you still start grapes? Yep! We’ll show you how.
#grapevine #grapepruning #grape #grapeharvest #plantpropagation
Grapes are an excellent addition to the yardscape or hobby farm. They are easy to propagate, using cuttings from the donor plant you want to create clones/offspring of.
Depending on the time of the year and the density of the plant material you harvest, there are different names for the cuttings and approaches to grow on new plants from those cuttings.
Cuttings taken early in the season are usually softwood cuttings, but we don’t usually do that for grapes. Cuttings taken mid-season are called semi-hard cuttings, and late-season cuttings are called hardwood cuttings.
If it’s late fall or very early winter, you will be working with grape hardwood cuttings. Harvest these from long canes that will not be needed for the following year’s growth on the donor plant. Use only wood from that year, and don’t do cuttings any smaller than the diameter of a typical pencil. You will want to retain 4 buds for each cutting.
Cut a blunt/perpendicular cut just below the bottom bud (the one that was closest to the main vine trunk), but not in the bud. Don’t leave a stub, as this will invite rot. Then count a total of 4 buds and cut about 1” / 2 cm above the 4th bud, in a slant. That pointed stub serves as a handle, a protector for the bud, and an indicator of which way the cutting will be planted. Handy, huh? This is especially important when you have a pile of mixed cuttings and you need to be sure to get the “polarity” right during planting. If you don’t the planting will fail.
Once you have your batch of hardwood cuttings, dip them in either rooting powder or liquid - a common and well-liked brand is Hormex®.
Then “stick” the cuttings into the growing medium directly in a propagation area in your garden or yardscape. Try to get at least 2 buds into the ground. Put a layer of mulch around them, and leave them out over the winter. Yep - through the winter. This will suppress the stem’s “urge” to put out leaves, thereby depleting the reserves in the stem that need to be retained to create root material.
Come spring, the soil will warm, sunlight will stimulate the cuttings to come out of dormancy, and root tissue will form in advance of the leaves - the way it needs to be.
Let them grow in place for several months, and then they can be potted or planted. Be sure to label them accurately. Different varieties are almost impossible to tell apart!
After the batch you see in this episode overwinters and then activates in the Spring, we’ll post a photo of the results here:
UPDATE PHOTO COMING SPRING 2024
In the meantime, we wanted to get this info to you so you could make use of it THIS year as the growing season comes to an end in much of the United States.
If you’d like to see how to prune your grape vines for maximum productivity and health, check out this episode:
https://youtu.be/0m5KWAXYH9Y