Planting governmental cuttings
Thursday, April 19 2007
Today was a planting day. When I got to the farm, Cliff was hosing down the cuttings that he had gotten free from the government over the winter from both of the two main government-run vineyards, one in NY and one in CA, that grow tons of varieties and will give up to 20 cuttings to U.S. vineyards that ask for them. Very cool. Anyways, he had buried them to keep them alive over the winter, which is why they were dirty enough to merit hosing. Cool fact: in the dirt, the vines come in contact with roots from various other plants that are often infected with bacteria/viruses that are symbiotic to the plants, providing nutrients. So if the cuttings contact these, they will do even better underground. Some were even starting to bud. Once they were rinsed, we put the bunches into water buckets and carried the hybrid cuttings out to the vineyard where we “planted” them in the various “holes” in the vineyard. Cliff cut slits in the earth with the shovel and placed the cuttings (right end up) in the slits and packed them in (sooo much easier than trying to plant them roots and all. And they have a good chance of doing quite well too). I made sure they had strings stapled into the ground and attached to the first wire for support. We also made sure that each row of cuttings was labelled on either end with their original governmental labels or with sharpy on hot pink ribbon tape (at least until Cliff gets his fancy official blue ones printed out). It was chilly and overcast today. We were out in our hats and gloves, L but at least temperatures are staying well about freezing. A lot of the vines are starting to bloom now. Cliff was teaching me the difference between the males and female vines. The males tend to put out lots of large flower clusters while the females tend to put out a few smaller ones…or something like that. He nipped the buds off a few of the vines that he said would produce fruit on their second budding so that they would bloom late enough for him to hybridize with others. If next week stays in the 70s, the vineyard with really start to get leafy. We finished up planting quite a few cuttings before I had to go.
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