Dying on the Vine: How Phylloxera Transformed Wine

Chapter 4: The Underground Battle: Grafting on American Rootstock

120 The grafting of fruit, including grapevines, has been documented since Pliny. The procedure serves many purposes, but it is relatively simple in both concept and execution. Elements of two or more separate plants are physically united in such a way that root support from one is used by the other. There are nearly as many grafting techniques as there are grafting technicians, but for various reasons, mostly economic ones, only a few techniques dominate any given industry. French viticulture, however , started grafting from a knowledge base of essentially zero. When the first attempts at grafting against the phylloxera were made by Bazille in 1871, he had no experience with the technique, nor did anyone else in Montpellier or, more importantly, the SCAH. Some, of course, had experience with grafting fruit trees—apples, for example, were frequently grafted—but this experience was of only limited utility. Indeed, knowledge about grafting grapes was at such a low level that Bazille’s proposal to graft grapes onto Virginia creeper or Boston ivy was taken seriously. Over the next fifteen years the knowledge base was filled in remarkably well and remarkably quickly. It is safe to say that the major issues were well understood and the appropriate techniques established by the early 1890s. But it took a lot of hard work by a lot of talented people to get the job done. Grafting presents three distinct problems. First, the rootstock, the part of the plant that inhabits the earth, must thrive. But getting American chapter 4 The Underground Battle Grafting on American Rootstock The Underground Battle | 121 vines to thrive in all regions of France was an extremely difficult problem to solve. Indeed, by the mid-1880s most of the research came to focus upon this problem. Second, the scion, the part of the plant that lives aboveground and produces the crop, must thrive as well. Here the issues particularly involved the problem of compatibility between the rootstock and scion, but also crucial was solving the difficulties involved in the vigor and productivity of the rootstock-scion combination. Not all compatible combinations were equally productive. Finally, there is the problem of the graft union itself: what is the best technique for putting the two vines together, given the varieties involved, the local climate, and the available labor supply? Work proceeded in all three areas at once, with progress occurring at variable rates. Montpellier made the first move toward solving the technical problems . From 3 to 4 March 1879 a workshop on practical issues related to the grafting of American vines was held at the amphitheater of the École (Société Centrale 1879). The workshop, attended by 962 people, was cosponsored by the SCAH and the school. Presenters included both faculty members and members of the SCAH.L. Vialla presided and gave the opening address. In his talk he noted the surprising fact that it had been only ten years since grafting had first been suggested at the Beaune Congress (Barral 1869, 666–67), and only seven years since the SCAH had made its first attempts to discover techniques for successful grafting (Société Centrale 1879, 13). Toward the end of the address, Vialla made two observations that introduced issues of an extremely serious nature. First, Vialla noted that resistance to phylloxera was not the only question about the American vines. A new and, as it turned out, devastating problem had only just been recognized: “Last year at the viticultural congress at Montpellier a question that I believe is of great importance was posed for the first time. I speak here of the adaptation of various American varieties to the diverse natures of our soils. This question is still being studied” (Société Centrale 1879, 14). The Concord disaster was now reaching its peak, and, unbeknownst to anyone at that point, the riparia disaster was incipient . Vialla and the other Montpellierians were only now starting to awaken to the scale and significance of the crisis of the failure of the first wave of American vine plantings. Moreover, as seen in Planchon’s 1877 analysis of the Concord failure, the cause of the calamity was taken to be the climate in the “region of the olive” and not the American vines’ adaptation—or lack thereof—to the soil. Thousands and thousands of 122 | The Underground Battle young American vines, both labrusca and non-labrusca—thousands of hectares of them—were just beginning their...