Manual of American grape-growing

by U. P. Hedrick

Blooming dates of grapes.

From three years' records, the average length of blooming season for grapes was twenty days, nineteen days in 1912 and 1914 and twenty-two days in 1913. The first date in the average year of 1912 was June 14, while for 1914, it was June 7:

Table IV.—Showing Blooming Time of Grapes

	Very Early	Early	Midseason	Late	Very Late
Agawam			*
America				*
August Giant			*
Bacchus	*
Barry			*
Beacon				*
Bell		*
Berckmans		*
Black Eagle			*
Brighton			*
Brilliant			*
Brown			*
Campbell Early			*
Canada		*
Canandaigua			*
Carman					*
Catawba			*
Champion		*
Chautauqua			*
Clevener	*
Clinton	*
Colerain			*
Columbian Imperial			*
Concord			*
Cottage		*
Creveling			*
Croton				*
Delago			*
Delaware			*
Diamond			*
Diana			*
Downing			*
Dracut Amber		*
Dutchess				*
Early Victor		*
Eaton			*
Eclipse			*
Eldorado			*
Elvira		*
Empire State			*
Etta			*
Eumedel			*
Eumelan				*
Faith		*
Fern Munson				*
Gaertner			*
Geneva			*
Goethe			*
Gold Coin			*
Grein Golden		*
Hartford			*
Headlight			*
Helen Keller			*
Herbert			*
Hercules			*
Hicks			*
Hidalgo			*
Hosford			*
Iona				*
Isabella		*
Janesville	*
Jefferson					*
Jessica		*
Jewel			*
Kensington		*
King			*
Lady Washington				*
Lindley			*
Lucile			*
Lutie			*
McPike			*
Manito				*
Martha			*
Massasoit			*
Maxatawney			*
Merrimac			*
Mills			*
Missouri Riesling		*
Montefiore			*
Moore Early			*
Moyer			*
Nectar			*
Niagara			*
Noah		*
Northern Muscadine		*
Norton					*
Oporto	*
Ozark				*
Peabody			*
Perfection			*
Perkins			*
Pierce			*
Pocklington			*
Poughkeepsie				*
Prentiss			*
Rebecca			*
Regal			*
Requa			*
Rochester			*
Rommel			*
Salem			*
Secretary			*
Senasqua					*
Stark-Star					*
Triumph					*
Ulster		*
Vergennes			*
Winchell			*
Worden			*
Wyoming			*

Ringing Grape Vines

The ringing of woody plants is a well-known horticultural practice. Three objects may be attained by ringing: unproductive plants may be brought into bearing by ringing; the size of the fruits may be increased and thereby the plants be made more productive; and the maturity of the fruit may be hastened. In European countries, ringing has long been practiced with all tree-fruits and the grape, but in America the operation is recommended only for the apple and the grape and with neither fruit is ringing widely practiced. Experiments carried on at the New York Agricultural Experiment Station by Paddock, as reported in Bulletin 151 from this Station, show that ringing may well be practiced by grape-growers under some conditions. Since Paddock's experiments, and possibly to some extent before, the grape has been ringed to produce exhibition fruits or a fancy product for the market.

Ringing consists in taking from the vine a layer of bark around the vine through the cortex and bast of the plant. The width of the wound varies from that of a simple cut made with a knife to a band of bark an inch in diameter. The operation is performed during that period of growth in which the bark peels most readily from the vine, the period of greatest cambial activity. The term "ringing" is preferred to "girdling," a word sometimes used, since the latter properly designates a wound which extends into and usually kills the plant.

The theory of ringing is simple. Unassimilated sap passes from the roots of the plant to the leaves through the outer layer of the woody cylinder. In the leaves this raw material is acted on by various agents, after which it is distributed to the several organs of the plant through vessels in the inner bark. When plants are ringed, the upward flow of sap is continued as before the operation, but the newly made food compounds cannot pass beyond the injury, and therefore the top of the plant is supplied with an extra amount of food at the expense of the parts below the ring. The extra food produces the results noted.

It turns out in practice that ringing is usually harmful to the plant, as one might expect from so unnatural an operation. Injury to the plant arises from the fact that parts of the vine are starved at the expense of other parts; and because, when the bark is removed, the outer layers of the woody cylinder dry out very quickly and thus check to some extent the upward flow of sap through evaporation from the exposed wood. Thus, not infrequently, the plant's vitality is seriously drained. Nevertheless, vineyards may be found in which ringing has been extensively practiced many seasons in succession and which continue to yield profitable crops, the growers having learned to perform the work of ringing so as to injure the vines but little.