Autumn Care Of Grapes

A rich harvest in the garden or in the garden is always the result of painstaking and difficult work. We are all accustomed to the fact that the main chores are in the summer, but many plants need special care in the autumn. This primarily applies to grapes. At the beginning of September, the vine is already quite weakened: all its strength is devoted to ripening the berries, and our key task is to qualitatively prepare the plant for wintering, providing it with protection from the cold and parasites, as well as the possibility of recovery after harvest. We invite you to find out what competent autumn grape care consists of.

The main stages of autumn care

The preparation of grapes in the country or a personal plot for winter holidays includes a number of important activities, each of which has a specific purpose:

• pruning and shaping a bush;
• spraying and treatment against parasites;
• top dressing and watering;
• sheltering;
• grafting or transplantation.

Pruning bushes

Pruning vines in autumn has an extremely beneficial effect on its development, as it allows you to form a more efficient plant structure and direct its growth. With proper processing of shoots, you can achieve a larger yield and accelerate ripening by several days, as well as facilitate your subsequent care of the bush. Experts recommend pruning twice: in mid-September and after the last berry harvest, when all the leaves have fallen off. At the preliminary stage, you should get rid of dry and damaged branches, and already do the main work after.

Watering and feeding

The most important stages of autumn grape care are soil fertilization and watering. A sufficient amount of moisture will ensure high-quality ripening of berries, but its lack or excess can affect the harvest very detrimentally. After collection, watering should be taken even more responsibly. If autumn has come rainy, do not overdo it with your help, and in drier months, regularly monitor the saturation of the root system of the vine with moisture. At the end of October, the soil should be additionally saturated with water by building several holes, and then loosened.

As for feeding, it is on it that the state of the culture in spring and the yield of the coming season depend. To prevent the nutrients from being washed out of the soil with autumn rains and spring melt waters, use a natural humic fertilizer made from leonardite. Humic acids do not dissolve in water, thus they fix all the nutrients necessary for the plant in the soil. The Humic Soil Improver will relieve stress from the autumn temperature drop, help strengthen the root system, and create a supply of nutrition for the soil microflora.

The soil conditioner for autumn application must be embedded in the soil to a depth of 3-5 cm.

Protection from pests and diseases and preparation for frost

Rodents are a serious problem for the conservation of the vine on the site. During the winter, mice not only eat the bark, but also its eyes. There are correct and reliable ways to keep the plant from mice: mechanical - for example, you can set up small traps from 5 liter plastic bottles. To do this, you need to cut off the neck of a plastic bottle and dig it in between the vineyards, put a bait inside the bottle and pour a little sunflower oil for the smell. Mice will be attracted by such a trap; chemical - special poisons.

You can put rodent-repelling aromas on the vine: kerosene, naphthalene, essential oils, Vishnevsky ointment, liquid smoke, tar.

In addition, be sure to treat the vine with any antifungal drug.

Immediately after processing, you can proceed to the last stage of care - covering the vine.

You can insulate grapes before frost in a variety of ways: wrap the vine in a film, dig in a bush along its entire length, or close it with spruce branches. It is this option that experienced growers consider the most preferable, since pine and spruce branches do not impede the flow of air to the shoots and perfectly protect them from snow.

Have a nice harvest!