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    • Petite Pearl Grape
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Thoughts, Ideas, Etc

New Website

12/14/2021

 
Today we launch an updated website -- we hope you like it and that you find it useful!

Butterflies

12/14/2021

 
Picture
Picture
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​For a few years now, I have been trying to create a vineyard environment that encourages pollinator insects. I have planted wild flowers at the end of vineyard rows and allow “weeds”, like Milkweed, to grow freely in the vineyard. Also, I am trying to reduce my use of pesticides that cause collateral damage to pollinator insects. This past season I saw a host of butterflies and many different species of bees. These are photos of some of the butterflies that were attracted to the vineyard.
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Forced to Choose

12/14/2021

 
Forced choice feeding environment used to compare relative attractiveness of two grape seedlings to feeding Japanese Beetles.
Japanese Beetles feeding on grape leaves.
​The 2018 season will forever be etched in my memory for its epic hatch of Japanese Beetles. Hundreds of thousands of them. I sprayed every week to kill them off.  By the next week, a whole new generation had emerged from the soil and moved into the vineyard. 
 
I got quite familiar with certain vines that seemed to be of lesser interest to the beetles.
There were some obvious ones, like ES 6-16-30 and T.P. 2-3-51, that the beetles were not attracted to because of their tough, corrugated leaves. But there were a few vines in the seedling blocks with thinner, uncorregated leaves that also seemed somewhat unattractive to the beetles compared to their neighbor seedlings.
 
One way to test the relative unattractiveness of these seedling vines was to set up a forced choice feeding environment for the beetles. I put a fixed number of beetles into a fine mesh containment bag that contained one growing shoot from a highly attractive seedling vine and one growing shoot from a neighboring, relatively unattractive vine.  If the beetles wanted to eat, they could choose either seedling or both.
 
At the end of the trial, each of the leaves in the study was photographed for later analysis of leaf damage.  I have not had time to finish the analysis of the photos, but hope to get to it this winter.
 
There may be some genetic basis for the unattractiveness. All four of the seedlings that showed some level of unattractiveness to Japanese Beetles are from the same cross and, genetically, one-fourth Vitis palmata.  My vine of Vitis palmata grows outdoors during the summer in a big pot. The beetles do not bother it, even though it is surrounded by potted vinifera vines which are highly attractive to them.

Red Fall Color

12/14/2021

 
Brilliant red fall leaf color in Vitis amurensis.Picture
​One of the signatures of Vitis amurensis is its red fall color. I have a couple of amurensis vines in the vineyard and also a few amurensis hybrids that show red fall color.  A beautiful sight.  From a distance, their red leaves always pop out from the sea of green and yellow around them.

A Very Long Stem

12/10/2021

 
T.P. 4-2-12, a Petite Pearl seedling with extraordinarily long  cluster stems.
​On a few occasions, people who hand harvest Petite Pearl have complained about the short stems. So, one of the wonderful discoveries this summer was this seedling selection, T.P. 4-2-12, whose mother, ironically, is…… Petite Pearl!

Kilo Cluster

12/10/2021

 
Multi-stemmed cluster weighing 500-1000 grams on Plocher grape seledtion with Chinese table grape ancestry.
​On one of my trips to China, someone plopped a grape cluster in my hands for me to taste. As I held it in my hands it seemed to weigh about two kilos. Later he sent me pollen from this grape.  I used the pollen on one of our small-clustered, super hardy varieties. Here is the best of the progeny.  Beautiful, multi-stemmed cluster form and clusters typically 500-1000g.  And quite winter hardy. If it were only seedless!

Low Cost 3D Imaging Technology for Measuring Grapevine Canopy Density

12/1/2021

 
Three images of grapevine canopy gaps. One, the original depth camera image. Two. A binary inversion of image to more clearly highlight canopy gaps. Three. Gaps depicted in colors to show major and minor gaps.
Canopy gap detection. Left: Original canopy image constructed from ten images. Middle: Binary inversion to clearly isolate 'blobs' where the Kinect IR laser beam passes through the leaf canopy and does not reflect back. Right: Gaps colored to overlay the original image, showing both major (blue) and minor (orange) gaps.

​Measures of vine canopy density all have the goal of evaluating light penetration into the leaves and fruiting zone.  Light that fosters growth and fruit maturation. Laser beams are a perfect analogue to natural light. Like natural light, some laser beams pass freely through openings along their path through the grapevine canopy, while others are blocked by leaves.

​I have always thought that one of Richard Smart’s most creative measures of canopy density and balance was “canopy gaps”.  It is, in fact, a measure of how open the leaf canopy is to light penetration. If you look at a VSP canopy from the side, the “gaps” are the places where light can pass through from one side of the vine to the other, unimpeded by leaves or fruit.  Or think of it as the spaces where you can see through the leaf canopy. If you can see through 30% of the leaf canopy, the vine gets a high score for being in balance. For years, I have eye-balled these canopy gaps in my vines. But I never had any idea how accurate my observations were.

Using a MS Kinect LIDAR device (cost $149) and several image processing steps, Chuck Hisamoto and Kale Hedburg from Aster Labs LLC, and I built a system that provides almost a perfect measure of gaps in the grapevine canopy. Much more accurate than what the human eye can estimate or even what can be estimated by the tedious use of manual point quandrant methods. And it does it almost instantly.

We also have conceived a method for automatically measuring the number of leaf layers in the canopy, another key measure of canopy density from Richard Smart. It uses the same low cost consumer LIDAR technology. We are looking for funding or investment to further pursue the implementation of that technology.

    Author

    Tom Plocher, owner, Plocher Vines, LLC.

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  • Home
  • About
    • History
  • Grape Varieties
    • Petite Pearl Grape
    • Crimson Pearl Grape
    • Verona Grape
    • T.P. 1-1-12 Grape
    • T.P. 2-3-51 Grape
  • Purchase Vines
  • Future Vines
  • Blog
  • Contact