Propagating Greenwood Cuttings
By Gary Mogren
Windwater Vineyard and Nursery
13100 Halstad Avenue
Lonsdale, MN 55046
(507) 744-2467
With the end of the growing season around the corner, now is the time to start thinking about propagating green cuttings. For those of you that can't get enough of growing grapes in the summer, this method lets you grow grapes all winter and it's the quickest way to multiply that rare single vine you've been dying to get more of.
During the late summer, annual cane growth slows down and the cane becomes hardier. Cuttings taken at this time are called semiripe cuttings. As they are thicker and hardier than softwood cuttings and have relatively high levels of stored food, they are more capable of survival. However they are still susceptible to water loss through the leaves.
Prepare the rooting medium by heating 50% sphagnum moss to 180 degrees for ½ hour and fill appropriate amount of six-pack nursery trays. Wet the medium by putting the six packs into a flat with no holes filled with 1 inch of water. Take 3-inch cuttings from the tips of the desired canes and cut off all but the tip leaf. If this leaf is large, cut it down to the size of a postage stamp. Insert the cuttings into the wet rooting medium, water enough to firm the growing medium around the cutting, and put a clear plastic dome over the flat. Place the flat on a propagation mat set at 80 degrees and hang a fluorescent light a few inches above the dome. A single two-tube shoplight is adequate for two flats. This light should run 24 hours a day. After the cuttings have been in the growing medium for a day, drain the remaining water out of the flat. The plastic dome retains the moisture in the rooting medium until the cuttings are rooted and transplanted.
In three to four weeks the cuttings should have enough roots to transplant into 4-inch pots filled with a sterilized potting soil. Once transplanted keep a dome on the plants for the first few days then start propping the dome a little more each day until the vines can survive on their own. At this point the bottom heat is also no longer required.
The number of vines you desire will now determine the rate that you take cuttings off these plants. If you only want a few, then grow these vines for a few months before taking cuttings and give the plants only 12 to 16 hours of light. But if you need hundreds, start taking 1 ½ to 2-inch cuttings as soon as you can, keeping the light on 24 hours a day.
Follow the same instructions for these greenwood cuttings that you used for the semiripe cuttings. The greenwood cuttings root within a few weeks and are ready to be transplanted. These plants grow rapidly and in a few more weeks cuttings can be taken from them.
By spring the original vines that have had numerous cuttings taken from them start to look quite ragged so you might want to propagate a few extra and throw these out. Keeping the vines pruned to about six inches is also suggested to keep them from getting too leggy.
Acclimatizing the vines to the outdoors is recommended before transplanting into the vineyard and only after all danger of frost has past. Once in the vineyard these plants should keep pace with any bare-root vines.
After a bit of trial and error, we have been successful in propagating hundreds of vines for our own vineyard as well as other vineyards. The key to our success has been to keep all equipment clean, use clean stock, and sterilizing both the rooting medium and the potting soil. Grapevines are susceptible to disease in the high humidity atmosphere under the dome so transplant them as soon as possible.
After another long season of struggling with your vineyard, propagating vines through the winter might be the last thing you want to do. But for those that can't get enough, propagating cuttings will get you those vines you need and let you grow grapes all winter.
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