Spring is the best time to plant new grapevines in New Jersey. You may be receiving ordered grapevines in the coming days or weeks. 1You must ensure that your planting material is healthy enough to avoid problems after planting. While it is a good idea to plant grapevines as soon as they arrive, inspecting the physical attributes of your ordered vines before planting may save you some troubles later. Nurseries send planting material on pre-determined dates hence; you should have enough time for a detailed inspection.
Inspect physical attributes of planting material.
- Check the labels to make sure you got what you ordered.
- Material (cuttings) that originated from other countries should have a quarantine certificate and hard copy documents.
- Make sure that the planting material came in a dormant condition. The vines should be moist but not soggy or dehydrated during transportation1, 3.
- As you open your shipment, vines should look clean and have an earthy aroma. If there are bad odors indicative of rotting vines then identify the batch and avoid planting them. Use the labels and batch information for requesting compensation or a refund from the supplier.
- Vines should be uniform in size, without scars or damaged buds. Shriveled branches or dried vines are indicators of non-vigorous vines.
- Similarly, roots should be healthy, untwined, downward-pointing with fibrous cream-colored branch roots.
- Vines with excessively curvy shoots could be difficult to train on the trellis system and should be sorted out.
Pay close attention to grafted materials
In the case of grafted materials, pay close attention to the graft union; it should be completely healed without bulging. The scion (upper portion) and the rootstock (lower portion) should be of matching thickness. Destructive testing of a few randomly selected vines from the lot will be very useful to determine the quality of grafts or buddings4. For example, applying thumb pressure at the graft union to check the strength of the union or checking the depth of the pith in case of disbudding. You may also visit the nursery before you order materials for the first time. Often, to keep up with the high volume of orders, nurseries may use bench grafting which is more prone to diseases and handling damage than field grafting which is often superior1. Remember that cutting corners at this stage of viticulture can lead to enormous problems as the vineyard matures.
Verify Quality assurance from the origin of planting material.
Quality assurance is best achieved by purchasing ‘certified’ planting material. Certified nurseries source vines from a ‘Foundation Block’ that has vines with complete elimination of a specific set of pathogens. Certified nurseries then propagate the clean plant material in their ‘Mother Block’. Minimum standards for ‘Mother Blocks’ are determined by the National Clean Plant Network (NCPN), for Grape, however, the requirements for a ‘certified’ label is legally defined by each state’s Department of Agriculture2. Each certification program is targeted for its own specific set of pathogens and viruses. Knowing what certification program your ordered vines have gone through is important to know the diseases your vines are free of. These nurseries also go through independent third-party audits. Make sure that planting material comes with documents or labels that will help in tracing plants back to the original source from suppliers. Each bundle of vines should have proper labels describing primary information such as variety, clone, rootstock, and some kind of batch number. Make sure your planting material was shipped promptly after packing and came in a temperature-controlled vehicle3. Avoid sourcing planting material from untested source vineyards such as neighboring growers. Symptoms of specific diseases may be unseen in sourced vineyards however, your vineyard could provide perfect conditions to spread that disease, especially trunk diseases such as Phomopsis, Esca, or Crown gall. Presently there are no certified nurseries in New Jersey; however, there are several certified nurseries in California and a few in Oregon, Washington, and New York.
Certified material does not guarantee disease-free grapevines after planting; it only ensures that planting material is clean for the diseases tested before it goes into the soil. You still need to follow proper cultural practices5, continue scouting for pests6, and spray programs7 to ensure healthy vines and quality wine grapes!
Literature Cited
1Helen W., David G. and Lucie M. 2010. Grapevine Propagation; Principles and Methods for the Production and Handling of High Quality Grapevine Planting Material
2Ken E. 2014. Before you Buy, Sell, Plant or Trade Grapevines. National Clean Plant Network Center. http://healthyplants.wsu.edu/grape-program-at-cpcnw/faqs/
3Tony W. (ed.) 2008. Wine Grape Production Guide for Eastern North America, Plant and Life Science Publishing. NRAES 145
4Judit M. 2013. The Impact of Fungal Trunk Pathogens in Grapevine Nurseries: The International Council for Grapevine Trunk Diseases Meets in Valencia, Spain.
5Lawrence C. and Daniel W. 2019. Wine Grape Varieties for New Jersey.
6Hemant G., Daniel W., Gary P. and Mizuho N. 2016. Red Leaves in the Vineyard. FS 1260. Rutgers New Jersey Agriculture Experiment Station. https://njaes.rutgers.edu/fs1260/
7Daniel W., Bradley M., Anne N. and Peter O. 2015 Grape Pest Control Guide for New Jersey. E 283. Rutgers New Jersey Agriculture Experiment Station. https://njaes.rutgers.edu/pubs/publication.php?pid=E283
