Yesterday Kathy and I assembled blue growtubes to place over the vines we plated in the vineyard last weekend. A translucent blue flexible piece of plastic is rolled and placed into a blue soft plastic sleeve. This grapevine shelter created by Blue-X is supposed to provide several benefits for newly planted grapevines. The obvious advantage is to keep animals such as rabbits away from the vines. I don’t know if the animals do not know if the vines are there or if they haven’t figured how to get past the plastic. Other benefits make sense such as protecting the vines from chemical sprays and offering some protection from the wind. But then there are a few benefits the manufacturer suggests that are interesting. Increased plant growth up to 150%, and being able to harvest the first crop a year earlier are remarkable claims. So is the claim of increasing the yield of the first crop.
Does the blue color make a difference? We have observed vineyards that use brown and beige grow tubes. What about blue? The manufacturer, Blue-X, points out that the grapevine shelters increase beneficial photo synthetically active radiation. As a result Blue light increases the vine’s diameter. We’ll have to wait and see how well the vines do in the microclimate inside these blue light shelters.
Meanwhile, my row isn’t straight. I can’t take the credit for digging the holes, which is probably a good thing. People will probably wrongfully assume that we had too much wine to drink before planting the vines.
I’ve been gardening for many years. Although I was skeptical about its benefits, I decided to plant half of my tomatoes and peppers under the cover of a red plastic mulch this year. The effects have been astonishing so far.
The plants with the mulch are almost double the size of the ones without. The ones with mulch also flowering a full week earlier than last year and ahead of the ones without the mulch. I could attribute some of that to better water conservation but there must be something to the red light wavelengths being reflected back to the plant to aid in growth.
I’m too early into my tests to know if actual yield will rise but given what I’ve seen so far, I suspect I’ll see a significant increase.
Good luck with the Blue-X tubes. Hopefully you’ll see similar results.