New vine grafts in the vineyard

If you regularly read this blog, you may recall that we did some "bud over" in our vineyard in spring - where we grafted a white grape variety over a few of our Merlot vines.  That was at the end of the May - so I thought I'd share with you some photos of the vines now to see the progress.

There is quite a lot of variation in different vines in as much as how they have taken and grown.  You can see from this one, that maybe it  is just taking, as there is a little bit of growth on the new bud on the right:

 Next there are some with a few inches of growth from one or both of the new buds:

Then there are some vines that have grown as tall as trees!:

On these bigger ones, there are even some bunches of grapes.  This first photo shows them still as flowers - you can just see the tiny bits of flowers...and the second photo shows them as new tiny grapes:

 The majority of grafts have taken and each week we count to see how many are 4 inches or more in height.  At the moment it's 240 out of 325 - with lots more that may well be 4 inches by the time we get home.

It's been interesting to see them all start and I'd never have thought we would get so much variation.  All this growth also means we have to do lots of suckering - which is taking off any new buds and shoots that appear BELOW the graft - as they would then come up as Merlot.  So it's been quite a bit of work. 

We'll see how they fair through the fall and hopefully the numbers of grafts taken will continue to rise.

Bud over in the vineyard

It's been busy in the vineyard this week, with mowing, suckering and "bud over" of a few vines.  "Bud over" doesn't mean you've had some friends round for the day - rather we are changing some of the vines from Merlot to a Spanish white varietal.

This involves using the current root stock from the merlot, cutting off the top and then splicing in a bud from the new varietal.

It's an interesting and precise technique so thought I'd share some photos so you can see what it involves.

Here's what the vines started out looking like:

Next, using a chain saw

the horizontal parts of the vine are cut off - the cordons.

The outer part of the bark at the top of the trunk is then stripped off exposing the old bud sites:

Where there were previously buds,  the bud is removed and an incision made at that point

Next, the new bud wood is prepared.  The bud wood just looks like little sticks:

One little bud is cut off from the bud wood:
 

And this is then inserted into the incision area on the trunk:

This process is  then repeated on the other side of the trunk so each original trunk has two new buds.  If you just use one, it grows too fast and isn't very strong.  By adding two, not only do you get two chances of them taking, but it slows the growth so they are stronger.

Next the top of the trunk is wrapped up, so that the buds are held in place with just the very tip of the bud showing through:

And now we wait and see!  We have to make sure all suckers (leaves growing on the base of the trunk) are pulled off regularly from these vines now - as they would want to product merlot and instead let the plant use it's energy for the new white varietal.

We decided to "bud over" because a couple of wine makers approached us and asked if we'd experiment with them on this new-for-California white varietal.  We are only doing about a tenth of the vineyard to see if it works and if the terroir is good for this varietal or not.  If it works out, we'll do a little more but still have Merlot as our main grape varietal.

I'll let you know how it goes. Hope the piccies gave you some idea of the process.

Go buds!