Terra Vitis- The First Ever Biodynamic Grape Planting Mix

| January 19, 2015

terra_vitis_1-2Terra Vitis was developed after a decade of field trials by the staff at Fairhaven. This proprietary soilless mix contains Spagnum peat, organic compost, medium pine bark, and sand. The ratio of components are designed to assure a balance of excellent drainage and aeration in a wide range of native soil types.

The most important aspect of this high tech mix is the revolutionary Biodynamics of the product. Terra Vitis contains both Humate Complex and Mycorrhiza to create the optimum root soil interaction.

Mycorrhiza is a naturally occurring soil fungi that acts symbiotically to aid in strengthening the vines drought tolerance, increasing transplant success, and mitigating contaminates in the native soil.

The addition of Natural Humate Complex aids in increasing the ion-exchange characteristics of the soil and furthers the untilization of nutrient additions to the planting site. Humate plays a critical role in soil structure by the formation of  Organo-Mineral Bridges to the surrounding aggregates.

To round out the top perofrmance of Terra Vitis, Fairhaven includes measured amounts of our specialty Grape Fertilizer ,Vitis Max. Vitis Max is a long acting, specially taylored, Organic nitrogen source, with balanced amounts of Phosphorus, and Potassium.

Terra Vitis planting soil is mixed at the planting with the native soil at a rate of 1/2 cuft per vine.

 

Certified Vines Are Now Available – Progress Micro-Cloning American Hybrids

| January 10, 2015

It has been a terrific year this past 2014! Fairhaven continues to move ahead with the indroduction of select lines of Certified vines for sale into the new planting market. We will be updating our catalog to reflect these new additions during the month of January.

Another major effort has been launched in the development of our American Hybrid Lines. During the latter half of 2014 Fairhaven pioneered the first Micro-Cloning of the American lines. In this process the new vines are created from a tiny group of cells (.5mm) in the newly budded stems.  These cells develop ahead of any pathogens present in the plant body and therefor are nearly 100% bacteria and virus free.  We have successfully generated enough meristematic tissue to begin the mass propagation of the genetic lines. The varieties we have selected are the Field Trial winners of the 8 year “Apostles” PD field test.  Our primary thrust is reinforce the sustainability of these highly PD tolerant varieties by offering the first Certiifed, fully Indexed American Hybrids for sale into the market.

So far, our success with these astounding varieties has been excellent, with sustained PD tolerance in the 90% range.  Combined with exceptional drought tolerance, and cold hardiness (into the sub-zero numbers) the progeny of the cloning process will represent a quantum improvement to the marginal performance offered by vinifera in the severe climate areas of the southwest.

RLW