Periderm Formation

Last year, I worried about the hardiness of grapevines when a freakish winter storm dumped snow on October 29th. I wrote a blog about it called Cold Tolerance and Grapevine Phenology. This year, when we got a chance to see our friend's vineyard, I noted that as the grapes were transitioning into veraison, this year's shoot were also turning brown, the signs of a developing periderm. When the periderm formation has completed, the green shoots will turn brown and then these shoots will be called "canes".