Phenological development and fruitfulness level of Carolina Black Rose and Sultana table grape varieties

Vitis vinifera is the most important species for grape and wine production in Australia. The knowledge of this species’ development from bud winter to leaf fall is important to determine the correct vineyard cultural practices and consequently improve its productivity. Carolina Black Rose is a table grape variety very known due to its sweetness flavor, but which has a lack of phenological descriptions in Australia. Thus, the aim of this paper was to analyze the phenological development and fruitfulness potential of Carolina Black Rose and compare with Sultanas in South Australia. Hence, eleven nodes of 10 grapevines were selected for both varieties; daily observed and recorded the quantity of primary and secondary shoots per node of each grapevine for phenological analysis. The fruitfulness potential was measured in the base of bunches/shoot, bunches/node and shoots/node produced by each variety. At the end of the analysis, Carolina Black Rose presented 16 days between stages 4 and 12 and Sultanas presented 15 days, showing that the phenology of both varieties is similar. Also, both varieties do not differ in relation to the number of bunches per grapevine. Results indicate that the correct cultural practice of the vineyard is essential for having a good productivity of grapes