Hello everyone. I'm a beginner (and I mean beginner) interested in growing grape vines. The reason I joined this forum is because there are so many videos on the internet, but I have yet to find one that addresses my problem.
My problem has to do with pruning a grape vine. I'm trying to do some pruning before the spring truly hits and the vines begin to leaf out. The Vines in question were neglected you can say. They produced grapes, one more than the other, but you could tell they had not been pruned for multiple seasons.
This is the vine in question:
The trellis system is incredibly weak, and to my rookie eyes, the vine seems to be too bushy. Well, that was last season. It produced a greenish seedless grape that I suppose matured reddish. I'm guessing that because of the canopy and the 'vigor' of the leaf growth, they never truly ripened. This was part of the harvest:
That season passed and this is what was left of that growth just a few days ago:
I had completely no idea what I was doing, but I decided a lot of it had to go. So I took out a saw and my secateurs and I began to go away at it. This is what I accomplished that day.
As you all can tell, there are still a few thick branches stemming out from the main trunk on the very bottom. I don't know how to proceed from here. One thing that threw me off and made it more difficult, was that I hear a lot about cane pruning. And I sort of understand that, because the other grape fine has canes just like those I've seen repeatedly in videos. In fact, this is what I ended up doing.
But the problem is that the vine I'm asking about (the majority of the pics I've posted) doesn't have those long canes that I so commonly see. Instead, they look like antlers. This is the best picture I could get to describe it:
There's lots of old growth (over one year I'm guessing) branching out of a 'cordon' (i suppose) and there's only new growth at the end. So I have no idea how to go about pruning this and only choosing one cane when the new growth is literally at the end of everything that is recommended I prune off.
If anyone can tell me how to proceed with pruning these vines, I'd greatly appreciate it. Do I cut off all the other branchings from the trunk and only leave the straightest one? What do I do about the antlers? How do I go about getting rid of those and if I get rid of those, will I have new canes spring about? Also, is it possible to build a new trellis/support system now that the plants have been established there for years? If I can get advice regarding the two vines, I would greatly appreciate it.
I dug and dug online for resources regarding the questions I'm posting here and I couldn't for the life of me, find anything that addressed this specifically. So my last resort was googling "grape forum" and this popped up. So I'm here asking for help from people who know what they're talking about, so that I avoid making as many mistakes as I possibly can.
Thank you very much.
My problem has to do with pruning a grape vine. I'm trying to do some pruning before the spring truly hits and the vines begin to leaf out. The Vines in question were neglected you can say. They produced grapes, one more than the other, but you could tell they had not been pruned for multiple seasons.
This is the vine in question:
The trellis system is incredibly weak, and to my rookie eyes, the vine seems to be too bushy. Well, that was last season. It produced a greenish seedless grape that I suppose matured reddish. I'm guessing that because of the canopy and the 'vigor' of the leaf growth, they never truly ripened. This was part of the harvest:
That season passed and this is what was left of that growth just a few days ago:
I had completely no idea what I was doing, but I decided a lot of it had to go. So I took out a saw and my secateurs and I began to go away at it. This is what I accomplished that day.
As you all can tell, there are still a few thick branches stemming out from the main trunk on the very bottom. I don't know how to proceed from here. One thing that threw me off and made it more difficult, was that I hear a lot about cane pruning. And I sort of understand that, because the other grape fine has canes just like those I've seen repeatedly in videos. In fact, this is what I ended up doing.
But the problem is that the vine I'm asking about (the majority of the pics I've posted) doesn't have those long canes that I so commonly see. Instead, they look like antlers. This is the best picture I could get to describe it:
There's lots of old growth (over one year I'm guessing) branching out of a 'cordon' (i suppose) and there's only new growth at the end. So I have no idea how to go about pruning this and only choosing one cane when the new growth is literally at the end of everything that is recommended I prune off.
If anyone can tell me how to proceed with pruning these vines, I'd greatly appreciate it. Do I cut off all the other branchings from the trunk and only leave the straightest one? What do I do about the antlers? How do I go about getting rid of those and if I get rid of those, will I have new canes spring about? Also, is it possible to build a new trellis/support system now that the plants have been established there for years? If I can get advice regarding the two vines, I would greatly appreciate it.
I dug and dug online for resources regarding the questions I'm posting here and I couldn't for the life of me, find anything that addressed this specifically. So my last resort was googling "grape forum" and this popped up. So I'm here asking for help from people who know what they're talking about, so that I avoid making as many mistakes as I possibly can.
Thank you very much.
