Hello winemakers! I'm a brewer who wants to experiment with a mondo grapevine I have in my back yard. It needs some serious pruning (it's pulling the fence over!) and I notice that all the leaves are now off it.
Do you folks have a "definitive" thread in your archives regarding winter pruning of grapes? Or any other pointers toward online resources? I've Googled it but I just get smatterings of info here and there, and I'm hoping there might be a site where all the good info is collected in one place.
Generally, you can prune after approximately two months of dormancy. That means for example that if you had a killing frost in mid November, you could start pruning in mid January. This does mean that you have to prune then, only that at least two months is a good time to wait. I generally wait until February or March.
As for HOW to prune, I recommend the book "From Vines to Wines" by Cox. It has many line drawings for year by year pruning directions. It is relatively inexpensive and is very good book to have.
Hi: I would select the main trunk, eliminate all others, and then prune all but 4 branches leaving no more than 8 buds on each, Also, leave two spurs of 2 buds each which will become the main branch for next year. aYou repeat this routine each year. Good luck.
I have some 40 + year old Concord and Buffalo vines here in KY. Business demands caused me to ignore them for about 5 years. It took me 2 years to bring them back into production. I agree with the previous post to use a reference. Try your local university ag site. I have found lots of useful info on these. Here in the Ohio river valley the GDC (Geneva Double Curtain) works very well. I converted to this style from the 4 arm Kniffin (vine too dense for good air circulation). What I like most about the GDC it is the ease of care and management of pests. A little Sevin in late May for the Rose Chafer beetles and a little powdered sulfur in late July for the brown rot. I ignore the other pests as there is plenty of fruit for me and them. Harvesting is also very simple from this trellis style. The variety you have will have a lot to say as to the management style you choose.
My experiance has been that for every "authority" you consult you will find very different recomendations regarding how to prune.
If you can limit the discussion to your current trellising method, you can reduce the number of "recommended" techniques to 2 or 3.
The 'best' pruning reference I've been able to find was "General Vinticulture" ISBN 0 520 02591 1. Unfortunately it doesn't realy cover how to prune but explains best why to prune.
To summarize _my understanding_ of that text (based on their field trials (procedures follwed by weighing plant matter as a measure of vigor & health):
For the healthiest PLANT never prune. It knows what the resources and and the actual weather is like and will grow in it own best interest.
The healthiest PLANT does not produce the best FRUIT, in fact it tends to produce the worst fruit due to an estacically healthy plant will massively overproduce fruit.
The best FRUIT comes from limiting vine production of FRUIT, forcing the vine to concentrate it's resources.
The Largest and best crop would be theoretically produced by never pruning, and culling 'excess' fruit clusters.
They observe however a vineyard that is never pruned would be nigh impossible to manage: spreading over too great an area, weight of vines collaping trellising, impenetrable areas going un-fumigated for fungus, and unreachable to harvest.
So the best practice is in general, prune as little as possible in keeping with whatever and however is most convienent for the maintainance of the vineyard; and then cull fruit so that it is "in balance" with the foliage. It is noted that since this fruit culling must happen in the mid-season when labor is in demand, many other tasks need to be done (spraying etc.), and is even more labor intensive than pruning in general, it also probably the most expensive technique.
They did not indicate what the "Magic Balance" between vine and fruit would be (they clearly did not wish to make staements with out specific experimental data to back it)- but they said enough to make it clear that it is probably the ratio of square inches of leaves to cluster count, but that the exact number probably varies greatly with variety, climate, soil etc. i.e. you just need know your vines.
That said I'm not sure it really helped me figure out 'how' to prune my vines, but I better understand what I'm trying to do.
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