Harvesting Roots

Thought the harvest was over, didn't you?! The last 2 days we spent harvesting rootstock in the Wiemer nursery. Grafting rootstock is a big part of Wiemer's business. Vineyards around the country source their rootstock from us, and this is a continuation of Hermann's legacy. Not only was he a pioneer in bringing Riesling to the Finger Lakes, he was also responsible for supplying the Finger Lakes and other areas with quality grafted vines. Now for a brief wine geek history: in the late 19th century European vineyards were wiped out by the root louse, phylloxera. Native to American rootstock, our vines are resistant to it. But, European grapes (vitis vinifera) make better wines, so we and the rest of the wine-making world now use grafted vines of vitis vinifera on American rootstock.

Grafting at Wiemer takes place over the winter, and then the grafted plants go into the ground in the spring so they can develop a root system. In late fall (now) the young roots are harvested and then distributed throughout the country for new vineyards or replacements. Harvesting these little plants is what I imagine harvesting Cabbage Patch Kids would be like (minus the tractor and plow).

So the tractor/plow pulls up all the rootstems and then we follow it to collect and bundle them. Funny enough, a lot of the plants have 1 or 2 shoots already, so they look kind of like the ridiculous antlers that the Grinch puts on his dog before he rides into town to steal Christmas:

These are the types of things that go through my mind when I am doing fieldwork. Anyway, we were lucky to have 2 gorges days of sunshine for this harvest. We also had 3 Mennonite boys helping us; I wondered yesterday why they weren't in school, but I learned that the Mennonites are only schooled through 8th grade. After that, they just work and get married and have babies, or whatever. Fascinating.