This week we took a field trip and visited Novavine Nursery to learn more about the process of grafting and growing new grapevines. We got to see the rest of the vines that we will be starting to plant in about four weeks. Although the approximately 13,000 vines that we have in this greenhouse seems like a lot of vines -- and a daunting amount to plant -- they are a mere drop in the bucket here. And this is greenhouse 5 -- so god knows how many vines they have growing at this point!

The plants in the greenhouse are those that were grafted a few months ago, as described in a previous blog.  Since that initial process, the graft union (between the rootstock and the scion wood) was dipped in a wax to seal and protect it, and the whole thing was planted in special tubes and placed in the nursery.

Most of the plants have "budded out" -- which pushes open the wax and reveals growing leaves. A small percentage of those that have not budded yet will not make it, but some are just a bit behind.

Not all the growth is happening above ground. In fact, the growth of the roots is quite impressive. Novavine's special growing tubes encourage root growth. Then the hole at the bottom "air prunes" the roots -- stopping them from growing down, which encourages them to form lots of laterals. This means that when the vines are ready to plant, they'll have a robust root system in place.