Proper Planting Of Grafted Vines

Europeans and Californians long ago learned that failures with grafted

vines often came from setting the vines too deep in the soil, the

result being that the cions struck root and became independent,

whereupon the stock dies or becomes so moribund that the beneficial

effects are lost. There are grape-growers who argue that it is

beneficial to the vine to have roots from both stock and cion, but

experience and experime ts very generally teach the contrary, it being

found that in most grafts the cion roots grow more vigorously than

stock roots and eventually starve out the latter. The disastrous

effects of cion-rooting are often to be found, also, when grafting has

been done on old vines in the vineyard; and, again, when the graft is

too close to the root system.



Another cause of failure is that different stocks require that the

vineyard soil be treated differently, especially at planting time.

Vulpina stocks require that the soil be much more deeply plowed than

for Viniferas on their own roots, since Vulpinas are deep-rooted and

are exacting in the depth of root-run required. Those who have had

most experience with resistant stocks maintain that all American

grapes require rather deeper plowing than European grapes on their own

roots.