A Detailed Guide to Wild Grape Cultivation Techniques and Management Methods
Wild grape is also called wild grape; it grows in thickets or on hillsides and is rich in protein, carbohydrates, minerals and various vitamins. Eaten fresh, it tastes sweet and sour and is delicious, and it is also a raw material for winemaking; the wine produced has a deep red, gorgeous color and a unique flavor. So, what are the wild grape cultivation techniques?
1. Plot selection
Wild Vitis heyneana has no strict requirements for soil, but fields with deep soil layers, good tillage properties, loose soil and convenient drainage and irrigation are more suitable for growth.
2. Propagation methods
Wild Vitis heyneana mainly relies on seed propagation, and hardwood cuttings are difficult to root. Without auxin treatment, none of the Vitis heyneana cuttings rooted; even when treated with NAA, the rooting rate of Vitis heyneana cuttings was extremely low. When treated with indolebutyric acid, Vitis heyneana cuttings formed callus tissue quickly and had a high seedling formation rate, with 92.9% of branches forming callus tissue and 42.9% of branches growing roots and buds. The application of growth hormones increased the seedling formation rate of hardwood cuttings of Vitis heyneana. With advances in research on tissue culture rapid propagation techniques, researchers began using tissue culture techniques to propagate Vitis heyneana seedlings, thereby solving the difficulty of propagating Vitis heyneana seedlings and resolving the seedling problem for the construction of Vitis heyneana raw material bases.
3. Trellis setup
The length and width of the trellis can be determined according to the size of the land area and the actual terrain, but the maximum growing space area for wild grapes can only be equal to the land area. Harvesting the vines, however, is relatively labor-intensive. Another trellis form is the vertical fence type. That is, erect a cement post 10×10 cm thick and more than 2 m high at each end of the bed, add several bamboo or wooden posts in between at 2-3 m intervals, and stretch 3-4 parallel wires horizontally from top to bottom to fix it into a vertical fence. The vertical fence trellis has two major advantages: first, harvesting and cutting vines is more convenient, quicker and saves labor compared with the flat trellis type; second, the 2 m high fence type can increase the vine growing space area by more than 30% compared with the flat trellis type. This plays an important role in increasing yield per unit area.
4. Winter and summer pruning
Winter pruning. More than 90% of wild grape fruiting canes are fruitful, and some strains can reach 100%. In winter pruning, short-cane pruning should be adopted, leaving 2-3 buds as fruiting mother canes. In order to better carry out small renewal and regulate the load on the trellis surface, new shoots on side canes can also be pruned into a fruiting group composed of two short canes, as a two-cane renewal. Wild grape clusters are relatively small, so to increase yield, more fruiting mother canes should be retained appropriately during winter pruning, so that the number of clusters per unit area increases. For example, when pruning "Changbai 9" in winter, retaining 35 buds per sq m of trellis surface is more appropriate, which can ensure no fewer than 50 clusters per sq m, and the yield per mu can reach 1000 kg.
Summer pruning. Because a relatively large number of buds are retained during winter pruning, and wild grape leaves are large and growth is also vigorous, the trellis surface easily becomes shaded and affects fruiting. 5-7 days after flowering, repeatedly pinch the new shoots; except for retaining 1 secondary shoot, all other secondary shoots are removed. This can ensure that about 180 leaves are retained per sq m of trellis surface, which is suitable for both yield formation and cane maturation.
5. Increasing fruit set rate
The main ways to increase the fruit set rate: provide pollinizer trees; the planting ratio of complete-flowered wild grapes to male plants is 5:1 or 3:1, and natural pollination works well. Spraying a 0.3% boric acid aqueous solution at flowering can increase the fruit set rate by 66.7%.
6. Field management
(1) Fertilizer and water management
Fertilization is generally carried out after harvesting the vines. The first fertilization is about the end of February to early March each year; at this time the temperature begins to rise and new buds begin to grow, making it the best fertilization period. The fertilizer type can be a mixture of farmyard manure and compound chemical fertilizer, with each chemical fertilizer application at about 15 kg per mu. The second fertilization is carried out from the end of May to early June, and after application it is combined with clearing ditches and earthing up. The third fertilization should be applied in August; at this time there is more rainfall, so pay attention to draining waterlogged fields. For weed control, after the last harvest in December each year, shallow hoe the bed surface, let it sun-bleach and earth up to prevent root exposure and favor growth the following year. In summer, weeds grow rapidly. After each harvest of vines and leaves, 200-300 mL of 20% gramoxone per mu can be diluted with water and sprayed. When using it, spray low to avoid splashing onto wild grape plants and causing phytotoxicity.
7. Pest and disease control
It has relatively strong resistance, and diseases rarely occur. The main focus is pest control. During the spring shoot bud stage, pay attention to controlling aphids and leaf-eating pests, such as scarab beetles, which can be killed by spraying 1000-1500 times diluted solution of solid trichlorfon or cypermethrin-type chemicals.
Finally, wild grapes should be harvested in a timely manner. Their fruit ripens in early to mid-September in Northeast China, with a sugar content of 8%-15% and an acid content of 1.5%-3%. Each cane has an average of 2-3 clusters. The cultivated yield per mu is 800-1500 kg.