Grape Farmer from the Dnipropetrovsk Region Harvests Four Tons Each Year

Alexei Bilotserkovets, a farmer from the village of Krynichki in the Dnipropetrovsk region has been growing grapes for over ten years. He harvests about four tons of grapes during one season, writes “Agro-Center”.

The farmer said that growing grapes takes a lot of effort. When it comes to grape varieties, he believes that new varieties and hybrids might not be the best choice.

“Hybrids are nonsense. I have planted and then uprooted dozens of these strange varieties… This is time wasted. These varieties are delicious but any grape farmer knows: their bunches are too full, to packed. And that’s where grapes begin to spoil. I prefer such varieties as “Kodryanka” and ” Nadezhda AZOS”,

said Alexei Bilotserkovets.

This year, the largest bunch weighed 4.5 kilograms. It was the “Sofia” variety.

At Alexei’s farm, all the grapes are watered automatically.

“I bought big tanks and I collect up to 10 cubic meters of rainwater in them. It is best to dissolve fertilizers for grapes in rainwater. It works much better when I use it rather than water from the Dnieper river,”

said the farmer.

Alexei shared another secret: putting nets above the vineyard. According to the farmer, the nets protect the bunches from burning in the sun, birds, wasps, and most importantly from hail, that often destroys grape harvests.

“I have been planting roses between grapes for many years, but only recently found out that in the Crimea roses are planted between grapes as they can “pull” different diseases from grapes,” said the farmer.

Based on the information from Seeds.org