One of the varieties popular in viticulture is the white grapes of Arcadia. It has excellent productive characteristics and resistance to most crop diseases. For successful cultivation, the gardener needs to familiarize himself with the rules of planting and caring for the plant.

Selection history

Grapes Arcadia - the result of the work of breeders from the Institute. V.E. Tairova, town Tairovo, Odessa region. Parent varieties: Moldova and Cardinal. It is noteworthy that both parent varieties have blue fruits, while Arcadia belongs to white varieties.

Grade description

Arcadia - grapes of early ripening, from planting to ripening berries should pass 115-120 days. The crop is stable, from a bush you can collect 35–40 kg of fruits, while one bunch can weigh 1.5–2.5 kg. The variety is resistant to low temperatures, withstanding frost to -25 ° C. Culture has immunity against mildew. It tolerates transportation over long distances.

Appearance

The vine forms a tall, up to 2 m tall bush, stems are powerful, the root system is deep. The leaves are in the form of a green blade, the plates are large, pubescent. The brush is conical, with large fruits up to 2 cm in diameter. Rounded berries can weigh up to 15 g, ripening, greenish fruits become a golden hue. The peel of the berries is dense, covered with a touch of wax. The pulp is juicy, with a pronounced muscat aroma. The taste is sweet, the berries are juicy, with a characteristic light acidity, contain up to 16% of sugars.

Grape application

Grapes are consumed fresh, a small number of seeds and sometimes even their absence allows the use of berries in fruit, vegetable or meat salads. Squeeze juice from the fruits, make wine out of them. Delicious aromatic jam or jam is made from berries, used in desserts as an ingredient and a delicious decoration.

Did you know? The grape varieties from which the Madera wine, world famous, was produced, died due to phylloxera (aphids that parasitize on plants). Wine is made today, but from other varieties.

Advantages and disadvantages

Arcadia has many advantages, but there are some disadvantages.

• Grade advantages:
• short ripening period;
• self-pollination;
• high productivity;
• frost resistance;
• immunity to mildew;
• large brushes and fruits;
• high taste;
• presentable bunch;
• transportability.

• Minuses:
• susceptible to oidium and gray rot;
• sensitive to waterlogging and drafts.

Proper fit

Half of the success in growing is healthy seedlings and a properly selected, prepared planting site.

How to choose quality seedlings when buying

Arcadia is grown with lignified cuttings. Seedlings are best bought in nurseries, from the age of 12 months.

Criteria for choosing healthy material:

• the root cut of a healthy handle is white;
• the stem under the bark should be green;
• the kidneys do not fall off from a light touch and do not peel off;
• the root system is moist and developed.

Where to plant on the site

For culture, you should choose a well-lit and sheltered from the wind site. The location of groundwater should be at least 2.5 m from the surface of the earth. The soil for Arcadia needs fertile, loose, with good throughput. Dig up the heavy soil before planting with the introduction of organic fertilizers (4 kg / 1 m²).

Important! Severe waterlogging of the soil can provoke root diseases. In addition, excess moisture will result in shredding of berries.

How to plant

The planting dates of lignified cuttings range from March to May inclusive, depending on the climate in the region.

Before planting seedlings you need to prepare:

1. Trim the shoot, leaving 1 cm to the first eye (total 4–5 buds on the seedling).
2. Soak for a day in a solution of water and honey (1 l / 1 tbsp. L.), Which will help activate root growth.
3. Dip the upper part of the cuttings in paraffin melted in a water bath (up to + 75 ° С). This will protect against drying out and inhibit the early dissolution of the eyes.
4. Shorten the roots by 1 cm.

Dig a hole up to 80 cm in depth and 70 cm wide, put drainage of fine gravel at the bottom, then a mixture of fertilizers: half a bucket of manure and 0.5 kg of charcoal.

Landing technology:

1. A pile of soil is poured over the fertilizers.
2. The seedling is placed in the hole, spreading the roots.
3. Then they fill up the soil, slightly tamping.
4. When buried in the soil, a growth point of the new shoot is left on the surface, since the cuttings do not have a root neck.
5. After planting, the trunk circle is abundantly watered and mulched with sawdust or straw.
6. Between the pits when planting several plants leave a distance of 2 m.

Video: how to plant grape seedlings

Features of seasonal care

When growing Arcadia, you need to control the amount of moisture, properly form and trim the bush. Do not forget about top dressing and soil care.

Watering

The method of watering the soil: within a radius of 50 cm from the trunk, dig a groove, pouring an average of 2 buckets of water per bush. Rarely watered, from the moment of bud swelling to the end of the flowering period. During the fruiting period, the plants are not watered. Resume the procedure after harvesting.

Learn more about how to water grapes correctly and how often in the summer.

Top dressing

In the first year of life, a young plant will have enough fertilizers planted during planting.

Adult plants fertilize using this technology:

1. The first top dressing is before flowering with liquid mineral or organic compounds. When using manure, the solution is prepared in the proportion: 2 kg / 10 l of water / 1 m². Mineral - nitrophoska (65 g), boric acid (6 g) are dissolved in 10 l of water.
2. The second procedure - two weeks before the formation of fruit ovaries. For 1 m² an aqueous solution is prepared from ammonium nitrate (20 g), potassium magnesia (6 g) per 10 l of water.
3. The third top dressing - 14 days before harvesting. To increase the fruit mass, 20 g of superphosphate and potassium per 10 l of water are added.

Prop and garter shoots

The variety grows rapidly and forms heavy clusters when fruiting, so it needs a garter on the support. The trellis method is used: the supports are installed at a distance of 3 m from each other. The first row of the rope stretched between them is fixed at a distance of 50 cm from the surface of the earth. As the bush grows, usually in the second year after planting, the vine is tied to the lower row of trellis. The rows of ropes between each other have a distance of 30–40 cm.

Important! Tapestry garter allows you to monitor the density of the foliage, thinning it in time. Thanks to the method, all parts of the plant are evenly warmed up by the sun.

Soil care

The trunk circle and row spacing should be kept clean. Regularly weed weeds that draw moisture and nutrients out of the soil. Weeding is combined with loosening to saturate the soil with oxygen. To preserve moisture and prevent overheating, the soil around the bush is covered with mulch.

You can use materials that are at hand:

• forest moss;
• sawdust;
• straw;
• freshly cut grass.

Pruning

A young bush is initially formed in 2-3 stems, removing weak shoots.

Subtleties of the procedure:

1. After the winter, the bush can be rotted under shelter or frozen shoots. They must be removed before the sap flow begins, so that the plant expends its strength only on the nutrition of healthy and strong shoots.
2. In the summer, the appearing mustache is removed, which complicates the ripening of the fruit, taking away moisture and nutrition.
3. In autumn, to facilitate wintering, the vine is cut off, leaving a total of 30–35 eyes.

Did you know? The grape is obliged to prune the donkey. Ancient gardeners noticed that the vine, eaten by animals, bears better fruit.

Cold protection

In winter, the stems of young bushes spud, creating a mound of 30 cm in height. In regions with harsh winters, they additionally cover with agrofibre or coniferous branches (spruce branches). An adult vine at moderate winter temperatures can do without shelter. In regions with frosty winters, the vine must be removed from the trellis, bent to the ground, and then covered with straw and spruce branches.

Propagation by cuttings

The best method for propagating Arcadia is cuttings. The method allows to grow a vine with abundant fruiting and high taste qualities of berries. As mentioned above, the best method of growing varieties is lignified cuttings. To do this, in the fall, when harvesting, they harvest strong green shoots from fruit-bearing sleeves. It is best to choose the middle part of the branch grown on the sunny side. The bark of the handle should be of a uniform color, at least 6 eyes are required. Before laying for storage, future seedlings are soaked in water for about a day. Then the planting material is sprayed with copper sulfate (5 g / 200 ml of water).

You will be interested to know if grapes can cause allergies and how they manifest.

This will save the cuttings from fungal infections during storage. The best, according to experienced winegrowers, is the method of storage in steamed sawdust. The shank is wrapped with a layer of sawdust, then wrapped in a film and left until the spring in the cellar. 2-3 weeks before the intended planting, cuttings need to be sprouted. To do this, they are freed from the film and sawdust and placed in any convenient container filled with ¼ water. Until the roots appear, they are kept in a bright place. Before planting, cuttings are cut and planted according to the technology described above.

Arcadia is a fragrant and sweet grape variety, loved by both adults and children. Cultivation does not cause difficulties, the main thing is to comply with agricultural technology and care rules.