This morning we paid a visit to the nursery which is preparing the vines for our new vineyards. It was really interesting seeing how little plants are made from long sticks of dry cane.

Our new vines ready for planting

Next week sees he beginning of a mad rush to plant all our new vineyards, they need to be planted before  Tu Be’Av (15 Av)  which falls this year on 5 August. Planting before this date will allow us to count this year as the first year of the vineyards life for the purpose of Orlah


Today we went to the Solo-Shtil nursery in Moshav Shachar in the South of Israel to see how our new vines were coming along. I was very impressed with what I saw.


It was incredibly interesting to see the process behind propagating new vines for planting.

The raw materials for the vines are sent from an authorized nursery in Israel or abroad as bundles of long dry canes.





The canes are sorted and then cut into smaller pieces called the scions.




The scion is then grafted onto suitable rootstock. The rootstock is chosen according to the soil conditions of the vineyards. The two different canes are mated using the Omega machine so called because the connection between the to pieces are shaped like the Greek letter Omega. The bond between the two different pieces is now very robust, like a fine piece of carpentry.







The join is sealed with a special wax containing all sorts of treatments to protect the new plant and then allowed to nurse until buds start bursting and the join starts healing and roots start shooting. The exact storage technique is a closely guarded secret.




The new shoots are planted into compost and allowed to grow. They are then sorted according to size and allowed to develop at their own rate. The vines will be of uniform size once they are ready for planting.








Once they are strong enough the baby vines are taken outside for exposure and aclimatisation to the heat and sun. They are regularly watered until ready for planting when they are packed into boxes and shipped off for planting in the vineyard.