Standard-free Forming Of Grape Bushes

2024 Author: Sebastian Paterson | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:47

How to solve "Sharov's riddle"?

New grape varieties, created in recent years by crossing frost-resistant wild forms and cultivated varieties, allow an ordinary gardener to grow table, wine and universal varieties in the northern regions of Russia, i.e. north of Tula up to Arkhangelsk, as well as in Siberia, in the Middle and South Urals, in Primorye.

These are mainly early and early ripening varieties with high frost resistance of the vine, low heat demand, capable of bearing fruit with short pruning and resistant to pests and diseases. However, despite the fact that even in the 17th century under Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich a vineyard was laid in Izmailovo near Moscow, which was covered with matting for the winter and existed for more than 30 years, viticulture in the north has no scope.

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In our village near Moscow, you don't really go to your neighbor to learn how to grow grapes, because the neighbor, as a rule, does not have grapes and never has. And try a person who finally decided to plant grapes on his site, read literature, so they will write about such wisdom and heroic difficulties that must be overcome, that hands will drop forever. And there is nothing to say about pruning.

The simplest and most classic pruning of grapes according to the Guyot system will still for the most part remain in the minds of a novice winegrower as a real "Chinese letter". Until you start growing yourself, you will not understand anything! So don't be afraid. The main thing is if you have a desire to grow grapes and if your winters are not snowless during severe winter frosts, feel free to plant grape bushes in your northern region. First you need to know quite a bit. For example, if in winter frosts are below -25 ° C, then it is generally better to cover all grapes for the winter, therefore the frost resistance of the vine in the presence of winter shelter with snow is not decisive. After all, I have been growing for about 20 years the Crimean variety "Early Magaracha" with a frost resistance of the vine of only -18 ° C.

How to cover grapes for the winter

The whole question is how to cover, so as not to suffer. Very simple. The vines, pinned to the ground and cut by 8-10 eyes, winter well under the snow. My site is at the very bottom, and all the cold air flows there. There is little joy in this, because it is better to plant grapes in high places, on the southern side of the slopes, away from blown places.

But when there is no choice, you have to grow in the lowlands. In the winter of 2005-2006 in my vineyard for weeks at the level of snow the temperature was -40 … -45 ° C, but the grape bushes of "Early Magarach", like all other varieties, wintered well. The level of snow cover was 30-40 cm. Along with pinning the vines to the ground for wintering under the snow, I also use hilling the pinned vine with earth, as is done in the Kuban and Ukraine.

In this case, it is important that the grape planting site is slightly above the soil level. During winter thaws, water should not stand in the place where the vines are dug. Making dry shelters from boards, film, roofing material, then providing ventilation every time it thaws is not everyone can do, especially if there is a large vineyard.

It is much easier to spud the earth (he took a hoe and spud the pinned vine 15-20 cm, like a potato). When the ground thaws, the grapes should be excavated, then he "himself knows" when to bud. In my opinion, the following wintering method is very good: a pinned vine without a ditch is simply covered with a board on top and covered with snow on the board. In this case, after the snow melts, the vine immediately begins to "breathe" without waiting for it to be excavated. I would like to draw your attention to the fact that these methods are good and economical when growing grapes in a stemless multi-arm form (more on this later) with short pruning of the vine.

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Planting grapes

The recommendations for preparing huge pits, the bottom of which is laid with a layer of broken brick and crushed stone for drainage and water drainage, are very frightening for novice winegrowers. But these works are usually carried out when planting vineyards only on heavy loams in the South Urals and in some areas of the Altai Territory. In conditions of permeable soils, this is not necessary. Basically, grapes are not picky about the soil, they grow on all types of soils with the exception of salt marshes and swamps.

The best thing for him is drained soil. It grows well on sandy loam in our suburbs, but it also feels great on clay soils in Moldova. Grapes are more responsive to temperature conditions than to soil conditions. Therefore, in household plots, it is better to plant it on the south side near the walls of houses, buildings, fences, which provides additional heat reflection on the bushes.

Now about the landing depth. The roots of grapes, depending on the variety, can withstand frost from -5 to -9 ° C, so they must be "hidden" deeper. But up to a certain limit. If you plant a seedling at a depth of 50-60 cm, this will lead to a delay in the development of the bush, since the soil at this depth in a short northern summer warms up for a short time and not enough. Here you need to choose the best option: so that in winter the root is hidden from freezing, and so that in summer it grows in a heated layer of soil. The most optimal thing when planting a one-year-old seedling in a permanent place is that after planting the vine begins to grow in a hole 15 cm below the soil level.

In this case, the calcaneal roots of the cutting with its length of 15-25 cm will develop at a depth of 30-40 cm, which is quite optimal. As the vine grows, the hole is covered. An annual seedling after planting in a permanent place is grown from one bud to one vine, the rest of the buds are pinched. In the process of growth, this vine is pinned on the first 10-12 buds (side shoots are removed from under the leaves). For the winter, it is cut off by 10-12 buds from the ground, pinned and hibernated.

This is already a two-year-old sapling hibernating. Having 20 years of experience in growing grapes, I completely disagree with those growers who leave the vine to winter for its entire length. In addition to the great inconvenience associated with twisting or pulling long vines along the ground, this leads to their damage, but, ultimately, the vine is still cut out in the spring.

It's easier for you to cut the vine in the fall, and keep the cuttings, it's better for the bush as well, because the additional load on the root, associated with overwintering of unnecessary wood mass, is reduced. If the vine is woody, it will bear fruit next season. Usually the most fruitful buds on an annual vine are from 5th to 7th when counted from the base, but in many varieties, especially modern ones, the 3rd and even 2nd bud can be fruitful.

So, we have grown a two-year-old seedling with one lignified vine, it is cut by 10-12 buds and will bear fruit. In fact, we do not need such a number of buds, but in winter some of the eyes may die (hereinafter, for simplicity, we will call the eyes kidneys, the difference is that the eye contains one main and several spare buds). In the spring, we first let all the buds of our two-year-old seedling grow.

Several green shoots develop. After the appearance of inflorescences on the shoots, one shoot with inflorescences must be left, the remaining green shoots must be cut out, leaving the two lower ones, growing almost from the ground from the head of the bush (the head of the bush will be called the overgrown thickening located at ground level, from which their future vines and sleeves depart) … These two lower ones will be fruitful next year.

In the fall, the vines that bear fruit are cut out, and two new vines are cut into 10-12 buds and pinned with further hilling and overwintering. So, a three-year-old seedling with two fruitful vines has been grown. In the same way, an increase in fruitful vines is achieved by one or two for the next year. The vigor of the bush increases to 5-6 years. After that, the number of fruitful vines remains constant, you just need to periodically grow new ones, removing the old ones.

We have been talking for a long time about the stamper-free multi-arm shaping of the bush (the vines extending from the head of the bush are called sleeves a year later). The peculiarity for the northern regions is that growing grapes in high-stemmed and large formations is unacceptable here. There are, of course, non-covering varieties, there are few of them, but I believe that it is safer to grow such varieties in our area, hiding them under the snow and cutting them off in winter.

All the same, these vines, cut off for snow, will give an increase of up to seven meters in the summer and will close your gazebo, windows, hedge. Why risk it and expose them to icy winds in winter and, God forbid, unplanned very severe frosts? I have been growing grapes in the Moscow region in a stampless multi-arm form for 20 years.

Its advantage in comparison with high formations is that a lignified, thickening grape stem with a large formation is difficult to bend without breaking, in order to attach it to the ground under the snow, and the thin sleeves grown instead of this stem, on the contrary, fit perfectly and winter under the snow. Six to seven arms growing straight from the head of the bush, after dropping the leaves and pruning in the fall, resemble currant bushes rather than grapes. In the spring, 1-2 fruit shoots with clusters are left on each sleeve. After fruiting, every year 1-2 old sleeves are cut out in the fall, but before that, an additional 1-2 shoots are grown from the head of the bush to replace the old ones.

If the optimal load of the bush is chosen, for example, 6-7 sleeves, then every year one or several old sleeves are replaced with new ones, and again 6-7 sleeves remain in the spring. Those old sleeves, the replacement of which did not have time to grow, are lengthened by an average of 5-7 buds due to the growth of the vine this year. In general, having reached its maturity, the bush repeats itself every year. Stampless multi-arm - the simplest scheme for forming a grape bush.

All grape varieties of early and very early ripening are suitable for it. With this scheme, the grapes will never freeze. He does not need to "work" in a very cold winter in order to "save" an unbearably large stem from frost, because there is no trunk. He will not die for you because he was overloaded with the harvest and went into the winter weakened, unprepared, i.e. with stampless formation, there are practically no crop overloads, but there is an even high harvest, and berries and bunches of record size.

Such bushes are usually grown on a single-plane trellis, when several stakes are hammered along the wall, a wire in several tiers is stretched between them and, tied to the wires vertically, a vine runs along the wall. The vines can be launched along the walls of the gazebo or along the fence. For clarity, the photographs show the same fifteen-year-old bush cultivar "Sharova's Riddle" grown in a multi-arm, stemless form.

The grapes in the north are worth growing. Your money will not be wasted. Even if you want to freeze the bush, it is not so easy to do, because in spring the grapes will be reborn from the earth from dormant buds Even if you are completely inexperienced in pruning, you can still experiment with bushes for many years until you get your way. Or maybe you will invent your own ways and techniques.

By the way, there is another important reason that can awaken your interest in viticulture - this is that the grapes that we buy in the market or in the store, before getting on the counter, go through 6-7 treatments during the cultivation process. and your grapes have every chance of being environmentally friendly. For example, I grow the grapes of twenty varieties that I have, without a single treatment. When you gain experience, knowledge also appears. Go for it!