The Secret to Pruning Grapes

Whether you're growing new grapes or inheriting a placenta, you're not going to be able to grow a new grape. "grapezilla" as you swear to fix it, it is important to cut them in the winter while they are fully dormant. It's easy to see the structure of the plant without all the leaves in the way, but more importantly, the potential for infection will be reduced if you make your cut at this time of year.

Once you understand a few basic principles, the annual chore of pruning grapes is simple, straightforward. Websites and books are filled with vocabulary such as "Two Umbrellas, Cane, Kniffen System", or " head-trained, spur-pruned. Grapes" obscures the fact that all grapes respond well to a single basic pruning method, which can be modified depending on the type of trellis used or the specific goal of advanced planting.

Secrets of trimming grapes

Here's the secret: What do grapes produce fruit on a one-year-old tree? When the germination of the buds in the spring and grow into a new shot inside the large grape plant, the shot turns from green to brown at the end of the growing season, at which point it is considered a one-year old wood. The following spring, some of the buds on the one-year-old wood will grow the flower (which develops into fruit), while the buds on the old wood produce only leaves or shoots.

The main goal of pruning is to increase the number of one-year-old wood in each grapevine without encouraging many productive plants to group grapes that lack energy and nutrients to fully ripen them. Left to own equipment, grapes grow a dense mass of old wood, mostly with relatively few "fruit trees" each year. Dense growth leads to poor air circulation, which encourages fungal diseases. It is expected to remove 70 to 90 percent of last year's growth each winter.

It is expected to remove 70 to 90 percent of last year's growth each winter.

The second purpose for pruning grapes is to encourage vines to plant structures that are conducive to harvesting and that correspond to the shape of the vine mesh is growing on. The aim is to create an orderly system of equally spaced vines that resemble the branches of trees. There are many trellis options, but most use the system of one main trunk with two or four main branches at a closed angle at 90 degrees, with heavy line lines positioned a few feet above the ground. Each winter, the vine beyond growth is cut back to the main trunk and branches to maintain the structure. However, there is a limit to the size or type of mesh frame and the number of branches that can be established.

Step-by-step

The following instructions assume you start with 2 -to 3-foot-3 - bare root vines that nursery usually sell during the winter months. If your grapes have already grown for a few years, or if you are tackling a big, placenta grape, you will need to cut it back in line with the shape of the ivy frame (so that it resembles the pattern indicated in steps 1 through 6 below). Before proceeding with the annual pruning regimen. If that sounds impossible, given the current shape of your vine, there is no danger of cutting all plants back to within 2 or 3 feet of the ground - it will regrow vigorously in the following years, allowing you to start a new training process.

Loppers and small pruning saws are needed to rework large overgrown vines, but otherwise a pair of hand pruners are necessary for annual pruning.

Year One: Build stems

1. If there is more than one shot in the factory, choose the strongest and cut the other back wash main trunk.

2. Cut the selected shot back to two or three eyes above to start growing the previous spring from the main stem. This promotes strong growth come spring.

3. Essentially the shot grows over the years, tie it to the mesh using the green vinyl tape plant.

Second year: Establishment of side branches

4. Following the winter, the main cut shot back a few inches below the first horizontal support of the mesh.

In the spring, several shoots should germinate from the lower buds, cut made in winter - as they grow, tie one shot with each support of the ivy frame (selected for the most vigorous shoots) and remove the rest, cut them, wash with the main stems.

6.Cut any flower group as they appear to encourage plants to devote the plant's growth energy to ready to support fruit production starting in the third year.

Third year and later: established (and renewed) Spurs results.

7. Each winter, some out-shoots grow from each side branch that has been linked to the mesh support so that there is only one shot every 6-8 inches

8.Cut the remaining shoots back to 6 or 8 inches in length. Fruits are developed on these short stubs.

9. Remove any shoots that grow from the main stem or that germinate from the roots.

10. Continue the process of training new elites along all the trellis support over the coming years. Each winter cuts the ends of the over-grown shoots, supporting the mesh.

Important Tips

When pruning and training grapes, there are a few more points to keep in mind:

Disinfect your pruning equipment after each work on the vine by dipping the cutting blades to solve the problem of alcohol. isopropyl

Immediately remove any diseased wood – it may have lesions or sap on the wood, with uncooked grapes, mold, or discolored leaves – and burn it (if you are in the permitted countryside) or throw it in "green trash" to allow the municipality to drag it away.

Any cuts that are not made, wash the stems or branches should be made at least one inch above the eye, and at an angle of about 45 degrees (so that the water to roll out rather than catch in the pock mark that usually develops at the branch has been cut).

Tie the shoots loosely to the mesh with green plant tape - the tape will eventually decompose when the branches are hard enough to support their own weight, but you do not want the tape to interpret its growth at the same time.