Week 19 shows continued growth with 164 canes at the 36" wire and 24 at the 54" wire. They may be slowing down a bit as it has been in the low to mid-90's all of last week. Some of the literature I read about Primark-Freedom indicated that it suffered in the heat so I will keep close tabs on it.
I sprinkled a little calcium nitrate along the edges at a rate of about 2/3 ounce per plant as the summer thunderstorm season seems to be settling in. We have had 2.71" in the first 9 days of the month so soil moisture is almost homogenous down to 32". Our soils are so sandy that all the N2 washes away pretty quickly so I thought they could use a pick-me-up with all the vegetative growth and some berry production.
Speaking of berries, I'm starting to get a few every day now. This morning I picked 10 from these vines plus a handful from my older, mistreated vines and a few wild berries for good measure. It seemed like a good time to do some comparisons so out came my little kitchen scale, an old pie plate and a camera. The top photo shows 10 berries of each variety. The wild berries averaged 1.4 grams each, the Natchez or Ouichita (I don't remember which) averaged 2.4 grams each. The Freedon's averaged 9.9 grams each! Granted the Natchez and Ouchita were terribly mistreated, tortured with salty mushroom compost and cedar mulch and should be bigger, but man, look at the difference!
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