Each year, as winter ends and spring brings milder temperatures, the vines can be seen weeping. This curious phenomenon, unknown perhaps to the layman in viticulture, marks the new life cycle of the vines that will culminate with leaf fall.
When spring arrives, the soil temperature begins to rise and when it exceeds approximately 10 degrees, the plant’s metabolism is activated, mobilizing its accumulated reserves. In this way, the sap begins to circulate from the roots to the stem and when it reaches the shoots and the cuts produced during pruning, it spills over them, dripping until it heals and covers the cuts with a gummy substance. We call these transparent, colorless drops the tears of the vine.
As we can see, pruning is done before this phenomenon, but it is important to note that pruning the plant does not cause the vines to weep. It is simply the weather conditions, the arrival of heat and humidity levels that activate its natural cycle.
The weeping of the grapevines does not last long, normally extending over a variable period ranging from seven to ten days, although its duration and the exact time when it occurs depends on climatic and geographical factors.
The weeping of the vine ends when the unhealed pruning cuts are covered by this substance produced by bacteria and the salts dissolved in the evaporated sap. This substance covers and plugs the cuts and, then, the buds begin to develop, anticipating their budding from which the new shoots will emerge.
This phase is known as overflow and occurs in the middle of spring. This is the time of bud burst, when the buds begin to swell and the borer, a cottony substance that gives its name to this stage of the vine cycle, which we will inform you about in another post, becomes visible on the outside.
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