pruning this spring

[jandrew156]

Hi Everyone,

I'm new to this but trying my best on a small vineyard... I had a lot of growth last year but wanted to see what should be pruned....can anyone suggest on my attached pic?
Should I cut back to one main trunk or let it go in both directions?
This will be the 4th season for these...i know should be bigger but I had some major setbacks!

Thanks in advance for any advice!

 

[KevinL]

'tis the season. I'm looking forward to getting started on pruning mine in a few weeks. I find it to be rather fun.

A few questions: What variety are these? What type of trellis system are you looking to have? That will help the good folks here get going on recommendations.

 

[jandrew156]

thanks for the response...
The vine shown in the pic is Concord, but I also have Catawba and Niagra. It's hard to see in the pic but there are two wires, I have a top wire cordon setup.

 

[KevinL]

Good to know. I've got a few concords as well on TWC at my place. It looks to me like you've got 4 potential candidates for cordons. I would pick 2 (one going right and one going left) and then remove the other two. Leave your healthiest ones. If you have any buds on these canes below the wire, nip them off. I use my fingernails to do it. On the wire I'd leave 8-12 buds on each cordon. These are going to become your spurs in for next year. As your nipping the buds you can check to see if they were killed over the winter by whether or not they're green.

I have to leave the caveat that I'm fairly new to this myself, so there may be a better way to do things. I got pretty good results with my concords this way last year.

 

[BigH]

My advice is to approach each vine that looks like this and identify the wood that has minimum viable thickness, aka "pencil thick wood". Commit yourself to pruning off everything that is too thin, and then decide what to do from there. You might have some vines where you can get cordons going. For others, you may need to chop back to the trunk and even remove part of the trunk.

Also, if you are going into year 4, then I would say that your vines are a touch on weaker side. You might want to invigorate the vines a bit this season. Vineyard practices that crank up the vigor

• more aggressive weed control
• nitrogen fertilization
• increased water/irrigation
• aggressive pruning / reduced bud count
  
• reduced crop load

Probably don't want to employ all of those. I would start with aggressive pruning and weed control. Your crop load will be naturally small anyway, so you kind of get that for free.

H

 

[jandrew156]

Thanks guys for the feedback... yes, they are definitely on the weaker side. My first year, I had major deer damage...they actually ate them back to the original planted vines... I thought they were done but they actually came back! 2nd year, I had really bad frost damage.... then disease took over. Again, I thought they were done but last year I put some drainage in and also fertilized... so all of that growth you see in the pic was literally one year!
So, I'm hoping this year is my payback... I'll be happy to get anything to be honest!