Dry Farming With Grapes
Categories: Fruit GrowingI have heard that they are planting Muscat grapes on the dry farming
plan. Will it be successful?
Grapes have been grown in California on the dry farming plan ever since
Americans came 60 years ago. Grapes can be successfully grown by
thorough cultivation for moisture retention, providing the rainfall is
sufficient to carry the plant when it is conserved by the most thorough
and frequent cultivation. Unless this rainfall is adequate, no amount of
cultivation will make grape vines succeed, because even the best
cultivation produces no moisture, but only conserves a part of that
which falls from the clouds. Whether grapes will do depends, first, upon
what the rainfall is; second, upon whether the soil is retentive; third,
upon whether you cultivate in such a way as to enable the soil to
exercise its maximum retentiveness. These are matters which cannot be
determined theoretically - they require actual test.
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