Diff Results on Root Grape Cuttings

[RedSun]

I'm been doing some testing with rooting grape cuttings. So far, I've gotten different results.

I planted a batch of seeded Concord cuttings, in a flat and with 85F bottom heat (mat). Room temperature about 62F and filtered sun. Planted on 12/14/2014. So far, no sign of growth.

Then received some Venus cuttings on 1/4/2015. Put a few cuttings in a zip bag, with "wet" peat moss. Top is zipped, but not 100% sealed. Room temperature is about 65F, no bottom heat. The buds came out about one week ago. Now leaves start to come out. Not sure about roots.

The same batch of cuttings were planted in the same flat with the previous Concord cuttings. Now there is a little sign of bud forming, but not very obvious. Not sure about roots forming.

So I'm puzzled by the results. The cuttings with bottom heat show no sign of growth. But the ones in zip bag in 65F room have started to leaf out. So what is the use of the heat mat?

I do not know what makes the cuttings out of the dormancy. If roots start to grow with the leaf, then I'm in business. But if no roots forming, then the top growth would be wasted.

One thing I can tell is that, the cuttings in the bag have more moisture than the cuttings planted in flat.

I know these are table grapes, but I just want to experiment with the cuttings. I believe both grapes are relatively easy to root.

 

[GreginND]

The heat treatment on the bottom is to develop a callous on the bottom of the vine that the roots develop from. Without a callous on the end, roots won't develop easily. If you let the whole cutting warm, as in your zip lock bag, they will start to leaf using the energy stored in the cutting. It will only grow until it saps all of the energy in the cutting. But without roots developing they won't survive and will die. The idea is to get the root end calloused before it begins to waken from dormancy and leaf out so the vine can be fed.

At least that's my understanding. Those with more experience, please correct me if I am on the wrong track.

 

[mgmarty]

Wow, yes. Hit the nail on the head.

 

[grapeman]

That is absolutely correct. So many people are fooled by having leaves form and thinking that there has to be roots also and are wrong in most cases. You need the roots first. Also when sticking the cuttings in the rooting media on the mat, the cuttings need to be placed bottom side down. Depending on who made the cuttings they may be easy to tell and may not. They should be cut with a flat cut across the stem about a half inch below the bottom bud (not several inches). The top cut should be at an angle several inches above the top bud. When callousing, the flat cut bottom goes down. If they are upside down they will never callous or root. If you do have several inches of shoot below the bottom bud they likely won't callous and root. The roots come from near the bud node (bump).

 

[RedSun]

I know all this. My cuttings are planted according to the books.

But this does not explain why the old cuttings are still not doing anything, no roots, no callusing, no nothing.

Why cuttings in 65F would want to leaf out, but the ones with 85F bottom heat would not?

What triggers the growth of the cuttings? Temp or the moisture?

 

[GreginND]

In your original post you said you didn't know whether roots were forming or not. "not sure about roots forming"

Now you say nothing is happening.

Certainly if the cuttings dry out they will be toast. Do you keep them watered?

 

[RedSun]

I can't see if the roots are forming. But when I pulled the cuttings, I do not see roots. The potting mix is moist, but not wet. But peat in the zip bag is wet. I think the extra moisture makes some difference, not the temperature.

 

[RedSun]

I have another batch (I believe Concord) I tried to root in mid December. I cut the cuttings long (with 3 buds) and buried them in a 10 gallon nursery pot and put the pot in my basement. The temp is about 55F. No bottom heat, some damped light.

Now most of them have started to bud out.

This got me thinking. The bottom heat may not be that important. With enough moisture, most cuttings should just root.

 

[grapeman]

One important note to you:
Just because a cutting leaves out does not mean it has rooted and is growing.

The idea of bottom heat is to have the cutting callous and then root out before beginning growth. If the cutting leaves out without roots forming they will shrivel and die in most cases (collapse). The ones that leafed out at 65 degrees did so because that is warm enough for budbreak but probably not warm enough for the roots to form.

 

[RedSun]

This is true. But the ones I have 85F bottom heat have not done anything in almost two months. I do not think roots have formed on those....

I'll have to see the results of the others. The ones in 65F room do not have roots yet, at least through the zip bag. Do not know about the ones in 55F basement.

This is just an experiment, since I had to cut the vines done anyway....

 

[BobR]

I sure feel your pain RedSun, I go through this cutting ritual every year and still can't get things to root. You probably couldn't find better advice than what you get from Grapeman, but it's just hard to figure out what is wrong in a chat session. If he were to walk in here, he'd probably be able to tell me what I'm doing wrong in 2 seconds flat. I didn't get any starts last year and in the end I gave a bunch of cuttings to a local farmer that wanted to try and start some grapes. He put some potting soil in a 5 gallon bucket and stuck the cuttings in the soil. He kept the bucket in his kitchen and he had cuttings sprouting out all over the place. He took them out in mid-May and planted them. Oh well, some day I'll get a right. In the mean time, I stopped driving Grapeman nuts with all of my questions.

 

[RedSun]

No, it is not pain, but fun doing it. I do not really need the Concord and Venus vines, but just to test the different methods of rooting the vines. I just want to share the results, not to argue with anyone.

So far the optimal way has not worked for me. Maybe I did not manage it well...

 

[johnbetz811]

Hello, I root concord and Ives with about a 50% success rate. Take a 5 gallon bucket, drill about 5 holes in the bottom. Fill the bucket 1/2 way with sand, straight sand. Select pencil thin vines, cut sections with 5 buds on them about 12-18 inches tall. Bury end of cuttings into bucket, add sand, and bury cuttings with 3 buds in the sand. 2 buds above the sand. I never put more than 8 per bucket. Water every day or at very least, every other day. Cuttings will bud and grow grapes. Pinch grapes off and continue watering throughout entire growing season. I let mine stay outside for an entire year. The following spring, when warm enough to plant outside, slowly dump bucket of cuttings and sand. You should have several rooted cuttings.

 

[AmityFlatts]

I have read the process to callus the cut and get roots. I did none of that and think I had around 75% + success on plants rooting and growing, and I am not sure some of the ones that didnt grow were not planted upside down.

When I dug up my plants from where they spent their first year in the dirt and replanted them in rows last year, I had 34 of 320 not grow, I am sure the dead ones was from breaking so many roots off when digging them from the ground. I had them planted pretty close together.

I went and collected 75 cuttings a couple weeks ago, put them in a garbage bag filled with damp sawdust, plants upside down. They are in my shop where there is no heat. Come about April I will go take them out and stick them in the dirt and watch them grow where I need to fill in the holes in the vineyard. I suspect I will have a high rate of success doing this again.

 

[RedSun]

My cuttings in zip bag (65F) have rooted. The ones in basement (55F) have also rooted. But the ones receiving bottom heat (85F) have not shown any sign of growth.

There is some possibility that the cuttings receiving the bottom heat may have dried somehow. I did keep them watered. But the watering may not be enough because of the 85F heat.....

 

[GreginND]

That would definitely be a possibility. I would certainly tent them in plastic to maintain humidity levels.

 

[grapeman]

When applying bottom heat to 80 to 85F and using a heat mat, it is entirely possible to overheat the cuttings. The most reliable mats have a thermostaic control probe. and the temperature at the cutting end is a bit tricky to maintain, depending on placement of the tip. I have placed the probe wrong before and the cuttings never rooted. It takes some experimentation.

Procedures for rooting cuttings is not an exacting science. Whatever you can use at your location with good sucess is the best for you. If you are from a nice warm area you can certainly just stick them in the ground and they will root. The soil is warm enough to get them to callous and root with no further effort. If you are from an area where the ground stays frozen until April, you will need a method to get them calloused and rooted so they can be grown out early in the summer.

I think the first effort I made early on in my grape growing was in the mid 70's when I was clearing a field from obstacles that had been placed there many years before. One of them was an old Deleware grapevine. I cut the vine up which had been overgrown for years. I took the one year old wood and put it in an old horse barn with a dirt floor. I buried the canes up with a nice thick mulch of old hay. The dirt floor was damp so it kept the canes moist all winter. The next year I cut the canes up into proper sized cuttings and planted them out in a row to see what they would do. I had considered putting in a vineyard at the time so if they rooted I would move them into it. As luck would have it, most of them took root and grew. I had decided however at that time a vineyard wouldn't be profitable here in upper NYS so I ripped the vines out. Some would consider that a waste, but to me it was a great leaning experience.

 

[RedSun]

I have one liquid thermometers and two metal thermometers in the rooting media, and the heat mat is controlled by the thermostat.

I think 85F is too hot and the moisture escapes very quickly. I could put on a dome, but that heats up the top more than the bottom, which is not what I want....