Sunday 24 March 2013

Grapevine Pruning 2013

A couple weekends ago, when we had a couple of days of faux spring, so I decided to prune the grapevine along the garage.  Last year's growth was extremely vigorous so there was lots to remove.





I wrote a post on last year's pruning (here).  Last year I left 2 buds per spur in addition to the bud that pops out at the base of the spur (i.e. 3 buds per spur).  This resulted in tons of shoots and tons of grapes....but the grapes tended to range from small to average in size.  The shoots that grew from the basal buds, did produce grapes.

This year I was more aggressive with my pruning and left only 2 buds per spur including the basal bud.  We'll see if this make a difference in the size of the grapes.



This past winter was a tough one...long stretches of -20°C temperatures.  As a result, at least 60% of the wood on the pruned shoots was dead and could not be used for propagating.  Nonetheless, I was able to start the propagation of ~20 cuttings and also give a good number to Fred for root stock for his vineyard in Osgoode (see the blog link to the right).  Here is my post on propagating.  I was happy with the technique I followed last year....so I'll give it another shot.

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