21. March 2017

What is a grafted grapevine?

Every year, old, dead grapevines are replaced with new, grafted vines (so-called "rassl"). Until the coming of the grapevine parasite phylloxera, it was not necessary to graft grapevines. It was thus possible to propagate them simply my planting cuttings. In the mid-19^th century, American varieties of grapevines (hybrids) were brought to Europe. Unbenownst to anyone at that time, these grapevines were carrying phylloxera (introduced in France in 1868 and in Klosterneuburg in 1872). It was only after enormous damages had already occurred in the 1860s and 70s that attention was turned to this existence of this parasite. The European vines had never had any contact with phylloxera and thus had developed no resistance like the American grapevines. After a few years, the practice was perfected of grafting European trunks onto American rootstocks. Unfortunately, the grapevines are still susceptible to cold and other parasites, which is why we have to occasionally replace rootstocks…