Viticulture in Tropics - Part 1

Being obsessed with perennial fruit trees my entire life,
training a grapevine to an arbor was my dream.

I live in a tropical monsoon climate.
So when i planted 4 grapevine cuttings,
others mocked me as grapevine grows in a temperate climate.
But when after an year of growth when the vine was loaded with fruits,
everyone was shocked.

The secret to my success was my expertise in botany, google,
experimentation and patience.
So i learned many things.
Now i know that most of the conventional methods are wrong from
my own experiments.

There's loads of online resources on Viticulture in Temperate zone.
But none about Tropics.
So i had to experiment and develop my own methods.

So i started by purchasing 4 grape cuttings from nearby nursery.
They were of 2 different varieties.
Black Seeded Table grapes & Black Seeded Wine grapes

I planted them in my backyard, close to house,
so that i can develop them into an over the terrace arbor.
This will reduce my electricity bill too,
as it provides a passive air cooling
thereby reducing dependency on air conditioner.
All the sunlight unnecessarily heating up the roof will thus be converted to
pesticide free fresh grapes & oxygen.

i did my research on grapevine pruning and improvised it.

First part was developing a strong, indestructible trunk.

Unlike in the temperate zone, grape vine is vigorous in all seasons in tropics.
So 3 years of growth in temperate zone can be achieved in 1 yr in tropics by careful pruning.

From observation i learned that the rate of primary trunk thickening (Secondary Thickening)
depends upon the total number of leaves above that trunk,
not on the number of branches as i learned in my lower classes.
This may have to do with large amount of glucose
formed in the leaves getting transported to root system.
So to develop a thick trunk allow the grapevine to grow unregulated in 1st year.

Once the trunk is 3 pencil thick, gradually prune off the lateral branches from the ground,
to the desired height of the arbor.

There's a misconception that winter chilling is required for flower bud initiation in grapevine.
This's wrong. Chilling is not a factor.
Maturity of lateral buds is the key.
So after a period of growth, after secondary branches becomes brown,
break the dormancy of lateral buds by pruning.
This will cause growth of lateral buds and along with it 1 or 2 inflorescence.

to be continued...