This time of year is when I often start propagating grapes from hardwood cuttings inside so I’ll have some ready to sell around the end of May. Grapes are one of the easiest plants to propagate. All you need are a few simple item
- cuttings from a grape vine
- some sort of container 5 “-6” deep ( I use dollar store dishpans)
- well draining soil ( coarse vermiculite, perlite, coarse sand are typically what i use)
- a pair of bypass pruning shears.
Once you have all your supplies, you’ll need to drill some holes in the bottom of the dishpan and a few on the sides to allow excess water to drain.
Fill the container with your choice of media and wet it sufficiently that it drains out the holes in the bottom. You notice in the images I’m actually doing this in the kitchen sink. Makes it easy to water using the hand sprayer. You will also see that today I used coarse vermiculite I picked up from Menards. A 1.5 cu ft bag just about filled 6 of my dishpans.
Stick your cuttings a couple inches deep so that at least one node is below the soil. A node is the point on the stem where a leaf bud is attached to the stem. One thing to remember when taking your cuttings from an existing grape vine or if you purchase some is to make sure you know which end is the bottom. You don’t want to stick your cutting in the soil upside down. On many plants its easy to tell which side is up as the buds point upwards however gapes sometimes can be a bit tricky.
Lastly place your container full of cutting in a cool dimly lit area for a few weeks. I typically put mine on shelves in my insulated garage. temperature between 50-65 degrees depending upon how cold it is outside. Make sure the soil doesn’t dry out. I usually water my totes with the kitchen sprayer once a week depending upon how dry the container gets. You don’t want the cuttings to dry out so if the area your putting them in is dry, I suggest misting them a few times a week to keep them moist. After several weeks you can give the cutting a little tug to see if its starting to root. If it resists pulling out of the soil you should have roots developing.
Once you determine there are some roots starting you can put the containers of grape cuttings in an area where they get some more light. Once your grape cuttings start to bud out and put on leaves its time to give them some additional lighting. I use 4″ florescent shop lights but any type of grow light will work as well. Once the fear of frost has past you can take your new grape vines outside and place in shaded area for a few week and gradually increase the sunlight. After they have been outside for a couple weeks I’ll carefully remove the cuttings from the dish pan and pot them into individual pots for my May-June Plant sales.
If you don’t have an indoor space where you can grow out your grape cuttings you can always just sit them outside in an area protected from bitter winds and they will be just fine. Starting them outside will take them a bit longer to root and start to leaf out but by mid June- early July they will be ready to pot up. Some growers I know will just stick the cutting directly into their raised grow beds in late fall or winter and let them root in the ground.
