Can anyone advise a wannabe viticulturist?
I recently bought a home with approximately 250 feet (approximately 76 meters) of grape vines strung on dilapidated wire fencing in three rows. The previous owner's husband was an avid winemaker before he passed and the vines have not been attended to in any real way for maybe more than ten years. Since then, they've become overrun with briars and sumac. I've been working at getting rid of the briars and the other plants and I can cut down the sumac as soon as the weather breaks, but I want to know how to go about making these vines what they once were. I'm told they were wonderful and produced high yields. The soil is really rich from years of leaf litter and the vines are like small tree trunks where they go into the ground. I know I need to rebuild the fence, but do I need to cut back the vines to any particular size? They grow up into the sumac and a few other nearby trees and that just seems out of control. I also want to note that I am patient and I don't expect this to happen in one summer. Honestly, this is the first I've asked anybody about this so if there are good resources or books, I would appreciate a push in the right direction.
Posted Mar 9, 2011, 10:09 PM UTC
You need to familiarize yourself with the two systems of pruning grapes, cane pruning and spur pruning. Some varieties do better on one system than another but either could be used. Wine grapes are usually spur pruned on cordons but it varies by location.
Your first year, you will need to be painfully harsh in pruning the vine and should be doing that right about now depending on where you are. Depending on the state of the grapes, you might be pruning it back to a single cane and starting the training all over from scratch.
If your grapes already have a trunk and cordons (thick arms) then you will probably want to keep them and try to train it back it that using spur pruning.
Got pics?
There are some good videos on Youtube showing the two methods of pruning. I recommend watching them because you really need to see it to get it.
Your fruit is produced on last years wood, so your pruning is trying to control the growth of the vine, while leaving enough 1 year old wood (either a cane, or a bunch of spurs) for the fruit to grow on. When rehabilitating your vineyard, your goal should be getting the structure right, not fruit production so don't expect a lot of fruit this year, get it ready for the years to follow.
Those videos were extremely informative! Thank you for that. I wondered why all the purple grapes were growing 40 feet off the ground in the ten or so sumac trees and the hard green ones were down within arm's reach. I'll post a couple pics tomorrow, but based on the jar of jelly we made last year, I'm going to say that these are concord grapes. Here's where the internet does me wrong: some sites say cane prune the concord grapes and some say spur prune for an overhead trellis. The trellis that's now falling apart in my yard was the type in the cane pruning video. I'm thinking that given the number of trunks and cordons I have going on up there, I can get away with cane pruning. If it matters any, I'm in Pennsylvania and we're looking at another six inches of snow this weekend. Like I said, I'm a patient man and I honestly don't expect to have this thing raked out and have the trellis rebuilt until the beginning of April (hopefully, there are a ton of projects to do around here).