Grapevine Rubberbands

So far, our January has been a mild one with the exception of two days in the teens that occurred on January 9th and 10th. The temperatures last week were in the 40's so we took that time to test out some grapevine tethering rubberbands. We are considering these rubber bands which are sold under the name "bandofix" or "stretchlock". Our first iteration at tethering our grapevines to the pencil rod was with the Max Tapener. This was an okay system, but we found that the brisk winds were enough to loosen the plant from the pencil rod and there was a lot of re-tapenering that was going on. With our long rows, we had to have spare tape and staples as well as a small scissors when the tape became jammed in the tapener.

So, while it was a good first iteration, we were looking for other solutions to our tethering situation. We next tried the Prothec System. We used this in the spring of 2016 to tether our canes to the fruiting wire. It is a good solution because the wire is biodegradable. We also used the Prothec wire to secure our young vines to the pencil rod. We secured it in 2 to 3 places and also used the wire for some Vine Chiropractice. Unfortunately, since this wire is biodegradeable, we had to ensure that our vines were still tethered to the pencil rods by continually patrolling the vineyard. (This is really good for Fitbit steps.) My husband is always on the lookout for improvements that could limit the redundant work we end up doing. His search took him to try a few of these rubberbands.

We did receive a sample of all of these sizes of rubberbands from Plantra and determined that we can use the #5 and #8 for our vineyard. The nice thing about these rubberbands is that they will allow the vine to grow in girth, they are UV treated and will withstand cold weather. They are also relatively easy to use. I'll let you know how long it takes us to tether our plants after we receive our shipment.