The vine Flashcards
Describe the 2 most important species.
- Vitis vinifera - Main Eurasian species, nearly all the grapes used in winemaking and has been used to make wine for several thousand years.
- American vines - There are 3 important species, rarely used to produce grapes because the wines they produce are widely considered to have unattractive flavours. Resistant to phylloxera (vine pest that attacks vne’s roots), widely used to produce rootstockes onto which v vinifera vines are grafted.
Describe the 2 ways to propogate or grow a variety?
- Cutting - section of a vine shoot that is planted and then grows as a new plant. Takes place in nurseries.
- Layering - takes place int eh vineyward, a cane is bent down and a section of it is buried in the ground. The cane tipe points upwards out of the ground. The buried section takes root and once these roots are established the cane linking the new grotwh to original plant is cut.
Due to risk of phylloxera, most growers use cuttings rather than layering now.
Vine variety = grape variety
Variety = cultivar
Clones vs. Crossings vs. Hybrids
1.clonal selection of cuttings with positive mutations, each individual vine or group of vines that shows a set of unique characteristics is known as a clone
- Crossings = new variety produced from 2 parents of the same species, most commonly used when talking about V vinifera, although crossings of american vines exist too. Technically every grape variety totday is a crossing.
- Hybrids = vin whose parents come from 2 different vine species, typically hybrids have atleast one american vine as a parent.
Hybrids and american vine crossinsg are used as rootstocks.
Four sections of the vine?
Green parts of the vine, onie-year old wood, permanent wood, and roots.
What are the four green parts of the vine?
- Buds - form in the join between leaf and shoot, and can bve dsecribed as embryonic shoots. Once formed, they mature inside their casin during the growing season so that by the end of the year each bud contains in minature all the structures that will become the shoot, leaves, flowers, and tendrils the following year.
- Tendrils - Vines can’t support htemselves so use tendrils to grip a supporting sturcutrte in order to stay upright. Once a tendril senses that it has touched a structure such as a trellis wire, it will wind itself tighyl around teh wrie in order to keep the shoot upright.
- Flowers nad berries - reproductive organs, male and female parts, grouped in bunches call inflroescences. Each flower that is successfully pollinated will become a berry and so inflorescence will become the bunch of grapes that will be harvested at the end of the growign season. Sweet grapes are attractive to animals that eat the grapes and disperes the vine’s seeds.
- Leaves - Thesea re the plants engine, they are responsible for photosynthesis which is provess by which plants use sunlight ot convert water and carbon dioxide into glucose and oxygen. Glucose is a sugar that is used to suport vine growth and make ripe grapes taste sweet.
What is one-year old wood?
Shoots turn woody during the wineter after they have grown. Following spring they become one-year old wood. Buds formed on them the previous year burst and grow into shoots. Managing the one-year old wood is vital fro the grape grower because vines will normally only produce fruit on shoots that grow from buds that debeloped the previous year.
Every winter the vine is pruned and the one year old wood will either be called a cane or a spur depending on how many buds it is left with. A can is long with eight to 20 buds whereas a spur is short and has only two to three buds.
What is permanent wood?
More than 1 year old wood. Restricted by pruning. Permanent wood is made up of the turnk and where present the arms of the vine.
What are the roots?
Functio nis to absorb water and nutrients from the souil anchor the vbine and stor e carbohydrates toa llow the vine to survive the winter. Most v.vinifera are grafted onto root systems from other species becuase they cannot resist Phylloxera.
Describe Phylloxera
Insect native to North America, V vinifera is unable to defend itself against this pest. Phylloxera infect the vine via living underground and feeding on the roots of the vine. Infections enter through the feeding wounds and over the course of a few years the vine is wekeened and ultimately dies. American vines which evovled with phylloxera are able ti inhibit the infection by clogging mouth with sticky sap. Form protective layers behind the feedings wound preventing secondary infections.
How can rootstocks help vine growing?
Grafting v vinifera grafted onto rootstock of an american vine or hybrid.
Also protect gainst nematodes and provide better resistance to drought conditions.
What is grafting? Describe the 2 grafting types.
Technique used to join a rootstock to a v vinifera variety. Most popular modern technique is benc h grafting. Specilaist plan nurseries. Short sections of cane from both the v vinifera variety and the rootstock variety are joined together by machine and stored in a warm environment in order to encouarage the two parts to fuse together. Once thsi happpens the vine can be planted.
Head grafting, switch to different grap variety between seasons. Existing vine is cut back to its trunk and a bud or cutting of the new variety is frafted onto the trunk. If the graft is successful the vine wil produce the fruit of the new variety at the next vintage. Takes a newly planted vine min 3 years to be able to produce a commercial crop but this technique can allow the grower to adjust quickly to changes in market demand.
