Friday, June 17, 2016

Grapevine Inflorescence

My friend came up to the land when we were not there and told us how surprised she was to see so many tiny grapes on our vines. Indeed, these little flowers, <digression> my husband always corrects me when I say "flower" because he would like me to call these grape flowers "inflorescence", he is correct, of course, <end digression>, the technical term for a grape flower is called an inflorescence, because we often speak of the first signs of grapevine awakening as "budbreak". When looking at the grape inflorescence, it is not difficult to imagine that these can indeed be mistaken for the beginning of a grape cluster.
Interestingly, these grape inflorescence that we are now seeing were actually formed in the spring and summer of last year.
In trying to understand this process of inflorescence formation in the spring and summer of last year, I stumbled upon some very informative references that I provide below. In the upcoming blogs, I'll attempt to summarize what I think I know.
References:
1. Markus Keller, Washington State University, The Physiology of Bloom and Impact of the Environment, 2011.
2. J. E. JONES, R. C. MENARY, and S. J. WILSON, Continued development of V. vinifera inflorescence primordia in winter dormant buds, Vitis 48 (3), 103–105 (2009).
3. Devin Carroll, What Causes a Bud to Produce a Bunch or Not, Practical Winery and Vineyard, November/December 2009.
4. Markus Keller, Chapter 1
5. Larry Williams, Bud Development and Fruitfulness of Grapevines.
6. Jennifer Hashim-Maguire, Managing the vegetative canopy and its effects on bud fruitfulness and fruit quality.

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