How to Propagate Concord Grapes

Collect grape cuttings from late fall or early winter when the grape vines are pruned. The wood should be dormant during this period. Select canes for your cuttings that are healthy and produced an abundant crop of superior grapes during the previous season. The cuttings should be one-fourth to three-eighths of an inch in diameter.

Mix a solution containing one part bleach and nine parts water. Soak a cotton cloth with this solution and wipe the blades of your pruning shears to clean them. This will kill any diseases on the shears that can harm your cuttings. Wipe the blades again in between each grape vine cutting that you make.

Make your pruning cut with your shears at a point at least 18 inches from the tip of the grape vine. The cutting should be just below the point where a tendril, grape cluster or leaf emerged from the vine. This point is called a node. Roots and new vines will sprout from this node. There should be at least three nodes on your cutting. Each node should be spaced 4 to 6 inches apart. Strip all of the vegetation off of the cuttings.

Tie all of your cuttings together and store them in temperatures between 32 and 35 degrees until spring. You can place these cuttings in a refrigerator, an outdoor shed, or bury them in a trench covered by 3 inches of soil and 12 inches of straw until spring.

Create a bed for starting your cuttings by plowing a south-facing hillside up to 12 inches deep with a rototiller. Grape vines prefer loamy, well-drained, fertile soil. You can increase the soil's fertility by spreading a 4-inch layer of compost and peat moss over the top of the soil and mixing the soil with the rototiller.

Create furrows in the planting bed that are 7 inches deep. Each furrow should be 4 feet apart. Place each of your cuttings into these furrows with the lower end pointed downward. The cuttings will not create roots if you do not orient them correctly when you plant them. Space the cuttings 5 inches apart and cover them with soil so that they are buried up to 7 inches deep.

Water the cuttings so that the soil receives the equivalent of 1 inch of rainwater every seven days. You can use a rain gauge to determine how much water the plants have received.