Many gardeners notice that during the fruiting of the grapes, some of the berries growing on the shoots crack. In order not to lose your crop, you need to immediately understand what is the reason for this phenomenon.
High humidity
Most often, grapes crack due to high humidity.
Remember that 2-3 weeks before the berries ripen, the grapes are not watered, because the fruits can crack and begin to rot.
Also, cracking often occurs after a long drought. If the grapes do not receive the right amount of moisture for a long time, in the future the vine will be actively saturated with water. Because of this, moisture will enter the berries, which, under its pressure, will begin to swell. Over time, the peel of such berries will begin to crack. Fruits saturated with too much moisture do not have the usual rich aroma. In addition, they are most often tasteless.
To prevent the berries from cracking due to excess moisture, the grapes should be regularly watered during the drought period.
If it rains constantly during the fruiting period, the soil under the bushes needs to be well mulched. To do this, you need to use dry organic matter. Usually, bushes in the summer are mulched with straw, mowed grass or sawdust.
Wrong variety selected
There are a number of grape varieties in which the fruits almost always crack, regardless of the conditions in which they grow. To preserve the harvest, such bushes must be carefully monitored. Fruits should be plucked from the bushes immediately after they ripen. Berries of such varieties as Demetra, Amirkhan, Beauty, etc. crack for no reason. In general, varieties of grapes with large green fruits are more prone to cracking.
Novice gardeners should pay attention to varieties such as “Isabella” and “Autumn Black”. Berries growing on the branches of such bushes have a thick skin. Therefore, they do not crack.
Wrong feeding
Timely and proper feeding also greatly affects the state of the crop. Nitrogen-containing fertilizers should be used only in the spring. The use of such dressings in the summer leads to the fact that moisture accumulates in the plants. The fruits grow too large, and the skin, not having time to stretch to the desired volume, cracks. These berries also have a not very pleasant taste.
But potassium and phosphorus supplements, on the contrary, make the skin more elastic.
But an excessive amount of such fertilizers in the soil makes the berries candied, and also leads to their ripening too quickly.. It is worth making a small amount of fertilizers with phosphorus and potassium into the soil after the grapes have finished flowering. Beginning gardeners can use complex fertilizers to feed grapes. They contain all the substances that bushes need at different stages of development.
Treatment of diseases
Diseases also negatively affect the state of the crop. If the plant is affected by powdery mildew or oidium, its fruits will also begin to crack and then rot. To protect the vineyard bushes are treated with fungicides. Often gardeners add a small amount of wood ash to a solution with a chemical preparation. You need to spray the bushes before the fruits appear on the grapes.
If the plant rots or dries already during fruiting, you just need to remove the infected branches and fruits.. This should be done with sharp garden shears or pruners.
After processing the grapes, the tools must be disinfected.
So that during the harvest you do not have to waste time solving such problems, the plant needs to be provided with proper care from an early age. Grapes that grow in good conditions and regularly receive the right amount of top dressing are more resistant to various diseases.
Other reasons
If the grapes burst in August or September, it is possible that they are simply overripe. Therefore, it is very important when the berries ripen immediately to pick them from the bushes. In this case, the loss of fruit will be quite insignificant. Cracked berries should be picked carefully, trying not to affect the healthy part of the bunch. It is best to use sharp scissors to remove the fruit.
It affects the quality of the crop and the soil on which the grapes grow. The berries of bushes growing on black soil burst very rarely. Much more often this happens if the grapes were planted on poor sandy soil.
Gardeners who are faced with cracking berries also have to decide what to do with spoiled fruits.
As a rule, if there are no signs of rot or mold on them, they are used to prepare various blanks. Spoiled fruits that are unfit for consumption are usually simply destroyed.
Do not leave berries on the bushes. This can lead to rotting of both cracked fruits and healthy ones. In addition, the sweet scent of the berries will attract wasps. They can also harm healthy bunches.
If you properly care for the vineyard and pick berries on time, there will be no problems with the harvest.
