# Question about the biology of the Grape cycle



## bpickell (Feb 7, 2012)

I'm looking to grow some grape vines indoors. The reason I want to do it indoors is that I live in a cold climate and I would like to be able to produce grapes year round and not just in October.

So I guess my first question is what causes the plant to produce the grapes? Is it photoperiod, photo spectrum, or the weather itself.

Also I plan on doing this hydroponically. So if any of you fine people have tried to grow grapes hydroponically, I would love to hear of your successes. I am going to need to know what method works best. Me personally I like Ebb and Flow, but I am open to DWC, NFT, or drip as well.

Since I plan on going with hydroponics, it would help dramatically if anyone knows what kind of nutrients these plants prefer.

Thanks.


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## Leanne (Feb 7, 2012)

This may help:-

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=72vk3emQOL8[/ame]
And

http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/load/hydro/msg0316523232682.html

Good luck.


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## bpickell (Feb 7, 2012)

hmm.. from the forum link I get that they need light feedings, and an extremely large volume for the root zone. So NFT is out. So it looks as if DWC or Ebb and Flow will be the way to go. I can do 30 gallon rubbermaid tubs for a make shift ebb and gro type system. But for 10 vines in a run I would need close to a 400 gallon reservoir. Hmmm that would be a lot of money per year on nutrients. I wouldn't be saving much money doing DWC, and would be more susceptible to root disease.

The video I've seen before and isn't a whole lot of help since they don't tell you anything about the system.

I'm still needing to know if they produce grapes through photoperiod. If I had to bet that's what I think it is. I just need to know what photoperiod would work best.


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## grapeman (Feb 7, 2012)

I hate to discorage you, but I do not believe you will be able to get a continuous supply of grapes growing inside hydroponically. It works for greens by staggering planting time as there is a basic time period for the greens to form. Tomatoes and such continue to bloom as the tomato vine grows, with most being indeterminate growth. Grapes however are not. The shoots all bloom within days of each other and as such all ripen in the same time period. The only way to extend it would be to crop secondary shoots, which will not work for long as the vines will soon become bushy, and lack enouigh sunlight penetration for proper bud initiation.

What is the reason for your desire to grow the vines this way?


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## bpickell (Feb 7, 2012)

My reasoning for this is, I have terrible luck growing anything in the ground. Everything I grow in the ground dies. 

I have been growing all of my vegetables hydroponically for about fifteen years now, and I really want to grow grapes, raspberries, and blueberries. 

Unfortunately growing anything hydroponically, especially indoors can be quite expensive. And I understand if I grew those varieties hydroponically indoors is my only option since I live in a cold climate. The water would freeze every winter and my plants would die.

So I'm stuck growing indoors. And if I have to grow indoors I would like to have it as a perpetual grow, to offset the cost of the growing. I'm fairly sure that something environmentally cause those shoots to form, and it's not an internal clock in the DNA makeup. Or at least I hope not. Most plants that only fruit once and then go dormant is because of photoperiod. And especially since they only produce grapes in the fall, that makes me suspicious about it being photoperiod. 

So if that was the case that it is photoperiod, I could control it by having a few different rooms set up and be able to control the lighting schedule. When I'm ready for fruit to set, I should in theory be able to switch the light schedule to say a 12 hour lighting schedule simulate the fall season. Which in turn should make the plant think it's fall and start setting fruit.

Again I don't know for sure.. I was really hoping someone on here would know for sure.. And I really do appreciate the input you guys are giving me. You guys are by far the most knowledgable people I've seen on the internet on the subject. Again Thank You.


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## grapeman (Feb 7, 2012)

Well, if you figure out how to do it, you could be a rich man because as far as I know, it isn't possible to do it. Let us know how you make out.

By the way, you say you live in a cold climate so you can't grow grapes. Why not? Just grow varieties suited for your area. I grow in northern NY near the Canadian Border, north of Burlington VT. It gets to -20F here. Are you colder than that?


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## bpickell (Feb 7, 2012)

grapeman said:


> Well, if you figure out how to do it, you could be a rich man because as far as I know, it isn't possible to do it. Let us know how you make out.
> 
> By the way, you say you live in a cold climate so you can't grow grapes. Why not? Just grow varieties suited for your area. I grow in northern NY near the Canadian Border, north of Burlington VT. It gets to -20F here. Are you colder than that?



haha.. I didn't say I can't grow, because I live in a cold climate. I said I can't grow in dirt, and I can't grow Hydro outside. I don't know why everything I plant in the ground is dead within weeks, but it never fails.

I planted both Blueberries and Raspberries in my back yard last year and they were all dead within a month. It's sad really.


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## AlFulchino (Feb 7, 2012)

i was going to answer earlier but held back/....at this point in the conversation you need to see if your outside dirt/soil is toxic or you just do not KNOW how to grow something....and if the latter is true then you better learn prior to growing indoors or you will repeat your mistakes.....


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## bpickell (Feb 7, 2012)

I guess Toxic soil is a possibility, but I have never had a problem growing anything in hydro. I even grew corn in hydro last summer. And it was awesome. That was one thing I thought couldn't be done, but I did it.


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## AlFulchino (Feb 8, 2012)

"I would like to be able to produce grapes year round and not just in October."

i am not going to say that thru a mutation or genetic work that this cannot occur, but if it were currently possible, then double cropping would be visible in the long warm growing zones already


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## bpickell (Feb 8, 2012)

AlFulchino said:


> "I would like to be able to produce grapes year round and not just in October."
> 
> i am not going to say that thru a mutation or genetic work that this cannot occur, but if it were currently possible, then double cropping would be visible in the long warm growing zones already



Double cropping isn't going to be possible growing outdoors or in a greenhouse. I'm talking about growing indoors where I can control the light cycle. The grapes would not know what time of year it is, when you are growing indoors. You can control the temperature and the light schedule when you grow indoors. If you start a 12/12 light cycle in April, then in theory it should start producing ripe grapes in June or July.


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## AlFulchino (Feb 8, 2012)

the ability to fruit currently resides in the bud...so to get a double crop you are going to have to either do some genetic work and encode the current flower genes into the terminal growing tip or we would perhaps be able to cycle a fruiting period and a dormancy period twice per yr.....have you seen any research on this? that would be quite an achievement to get wood to harden off twice per yr...personally i think what you are looking for will have to come thru genetic work, but i am the first guy to say never say never

let us know what you do as it happens w pictures...it would be a great story!


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## bpickell (Feb 8, 2012)

AlFulchino said:


> the ability to fruit currently resides in the bud...so to get a double crop you are going to have to either do some genetic work and encode the current flower genes into the terminal growing tip or we would perhaps be able to cycle a fruiting period and a dormancy period twice per yr.....have you seen any research on this? that would be quite an achievement to get wood to harden off twice per yr...personally i think what you are looking for will have to come thru genetic work, but i am the first guy to say never say never
> 
> let us know what you do as it happens w pictures...it would be a great story!



OK, that's cool, but how about when the fruit set occurs? I can live with only one yield a year per plant. But what I'm wanting to do is have several different plants in separate rooms with separate lighting controls. So that I can harvest one set of vines per month.


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## AlFulchino (Feb 8, 2012)

ok...so you have 12 rooms to devote to grapes? even six? wow

i would think that each room will need its own light controls but more importantly you will have to instigate dormancy to mimic seasons....and you are saying you want to have grapes all year

have at it...sounds interesting

i think for the time invested i would grow my grapes for one season and then visit various areas in both hemispheres and let someone else do this to get the fresh grapes


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## mohillbilly (May 13, 2014)

grapes need a certain number of chill hours in order for them to bloom and set grapes


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## garymc (May 13, 2014)

I've heard it said that even muscadines require a certain number of chill hours. One difference, though, is that some of them bloom all summer and will still be blooming when you are picking grapes if you don't pick the blooms off. I have vines that I have to do that in order to make them concentrate their energy on the ripening grapes instead of new blooms and BB sized grapes. For what it's worth.


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## blumentopferde (May 13, 2014)

I've read that in tropical environments you can have two, even three growing cycles per year. But that's just what I've read in a non-scientific article about grape growing in the tropics.

But it sounds legit to me, as vines develop new shoots and new grapes after late frosts. You don't have to wait a full season for them to develop...

Apart from that I find it quite costly to expose your grapes to artificial lighting all year round. You might live in a cold place, but unless you live in the woods or in a cave there'll definitely be some sunshine.

Why not have a bunch of varieties with different growing cycles? So you could still harvest grapes over a time span of several months...


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## dwhill40 (May 13, 2014)

So what would a bottle on bonsai Zin be worth? My inexperienced take on your endeavor after growing my own for a year is this, grapevines are respiration, photo-synthesis carbohydrate producing machines that require massive space and resources. There is the cost of simulating the light and temp of the seasons which is not ridiculous on a small scale but if you want any volume of fruit you will need big vines which require even bigger roots. Think of trees. It would be a fun experiment for sure. A greenhouse would likely give you a more realistic way to manipulate the maturity time.


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## dwhill40 (May 13, 2014)

Here ya' go....The flowering of Vitis vinifera spreads over two seasons. Tendrils and inflorescences have a common origin known as anlage or uncommitted primordia. The fate of the uncommitted primordia depends on the cytokinin-gibberellin balance, with cytokinins promoting transition to flowering and gibberellins inhibiting it. High temperature and high light are induction stimuli for flowering. Neither photoperiod nor vernalization is very relevant for flowering induction. Inflorescence primordia development in latent buds stops after the formation of secondary and tertiary branches, approximately one month before shoot periderm formation.


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## grapezilla (May 21, 2014)

I will place a few plants in a hydro in a few weeks time as I receive them.

There are dwarf plants commercially available called 'pixie grapes' or microvines that are partly insensitive to gibberellic acid and thus flower continuously producing fruit all year long.


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## blumentopferde (May 21, 2014)

grapezilla said:


> I will place a few plants in a hydro in a few weeks time as I receive them.
> 
> There are dwarf plants commercially available called 'pixie grapes' or microvines that are partly insensitive to gibberellic acid and thus flower continuously producing fruit all year long.



Now that's an interesting variety! Actually exactly what bpickell was looking for!


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## dwhill40 (May 22, 2014)

Now that is cool. Def. worth a google. I'm curious about productivity or flavor but talk about an awesome conversation piece for a garden or patio. A few garden gnomes placed strategically around and the neighbors would talk.


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## grapezilla (Sep 30, 2014)

Now I've had the plants for a good three months turning from 5 cm long plantlets in test tubes to 40cm vines and they have started to flower and have small berries.

I'm trying to multiply them as much as I can at the moment so I won't let them flower much at the moment as I'll start taking cuttings in a bit but so far so good, doing better than the in soil ones but then again these have benefited from slightly better lighting conditions.

I ordered some led lights and am quite positive about the chances of fruiting through out the winter.


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## grapezilla (Nov 17, 2014)

Had some mite problems that caused a bit of a setback but I let one of the plants flower earlier on so now I'm enjoying a mini table top hydroponic véraison.


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