Tuesday, December 09, 2014

Quitting time.

All the grapevines in Vinoland have pretty much shut down.  In fact, driving through the valley, there aren't many leaves on vines to be seen anywhere - except for some apparently virused vines that are hanging onto their bright red leaves a little longer.  This particular node that I photographed, although it's a very nice node - nice bud, nice abscission scar, nice tendril - seems to be having a little trouble shutting down, as some of the tissue on this vine has not fully lignified.  The wood of this shoot is still slightly green and soft.  This vine also has quite a few petioles that are still clinging onto their shoot for dear life having abscised their individual leaf blades (the petiole usually separates with the leaf blade still attached).
Now I'm not an expert, and if there is anyone out there that can enlighten me further please feel free to chime in, but I do know that poor lignification of grapevine tissue can be due to a number of factors, among them; virus infection, water stress, deficiency of nutrients (as well as an oversupply) and differing levels of phytohormones such as auxins and cytokinins.
It's just one grapevine so I'm not unduly worried, but it does give me pause for thought.  And something else to research about the life and growing habits of these fascinating plants.

4 comments:

Thomas said...

Maybe it's not the grape variety that it is supposed to be and it;s just acting differently than the others.

Has anyone noticed that all google blogs now come with captcha, like it or not?

New Hampshire Wineman said...

Thomas: Does the NHWM come with a captcha for you? I haven't designated one, and Vinsanity doesn't require it to post!
Trusting you'll have a Merry Christmas.

Thomas said...

Dennis: All of a sudden, google blogs have been asking me to fill out the captcha--not just at this blog.

I have done nothing differently on my end.

It is one more annoyance from the "do no evil" crowd that plans to own the internet.

If it keeps up, I will stop going to blogs, mainly because I value my time far more than google seems to think we ought to value our time.

Vinogirl said...

Tomasso: It's just a common or garden Syrah vine. Hasn't mutated (that I know of, anyway).
Google is asking me to verify my own comments now. What's happening? Shall have to look into this further.