Pruning help!

[mjs]

Hello everyone! I recently bought a house in Baton Rouge, Louisiana that has an unruly muscadine vine growing from my yard into the neighbors. It is so massive it hardly produced any fruit this year, so I'd like to get it cut back and under control/trellised. I've read that I can just about cut them back to the ground, but before I do any damage I'd like to get your opinion! Please take a look at the attached photo and let me know what you think. Should I cut it all the way at the ground to produce a single stalk? What is the best plan of attack? Thanks for your help!

 

[Johny99]

In my experience, if you cut it to the ground, it will come up all over. How much of the existing trunk do you like? I'd top it there and take out the smaller trunks if you don't want them. You can then pinch off or train the shoots for what you want. I don't know muscadine per se' but vernifera only fruit from the current years shoots. So a general rule is to prune leaving buds where you want fruit.

 

[bchilders]

I suggest not cutting it all the way back to the ground if you want to have grapes next year. Doing so might even kill the vine. I would first think about how you want it to grow and prune to train it that way. Cut out all the small growth back leaving two or three buds up from the trunk where you want new growth and no buds (cut back to the main trunk) where you want to prevent growth. You can always cut more next year if you need to.