Pruning to delay harvest

[VillaVino]

Hello All,

I grow vinifera in the deep south. Trust me it can be done. I would like to delay my harvest via pruning as late as possible when temps are cooler especially delta of day and night temps. I know this can be done because it happened on accident this year. My small vineyard is in the corner of a large pasture. An old fence post was broken and a herd of cattle had it's way with my vines when the new shoots were 2 to 6 inches. A cow isn't a precision snipper so the remaining new shoots were 1/2 to an inch or two left remaining. The vines responded by launching every possible dormant bud available. There were new sprouts everywhere. After much selective snipping and rubbing off of buds I managed to end up with a mostly normal set of shoots. It made a great opportunity to get rid of large spurs. The fruiting was reduced by more than 50% probably due to the cows eating the immature tiny clusters but overall the fruiting cycle was delayed by weeks. I actually had to harvest due to an incoming hurricane.

So what I'm looking for is an established method of pruning to accomplish a delayed fruiting cycle. Any knowledge out there on the matter?

 

[VillaVino]

Up here in Wisconsin, I’ll prune my 3 acre vineyard 2 times each spring. The first pruning, I take it down to 5 or 6 buds. This takes a full days work with help and gets the canes out of the way. I do this at the end of March. I have a gas hedger and cut between the fruiting and second wires. Then I wait. I’ll fix the trellis, run new trellis or support wires, etc. It used to be that you didn’t have to worry about frost after Mother’s Day but I’ve been bitten too many times. When the 10 day forecasts show no cold days, I’ll prune down to 2 buds and pray. This secondary pruning will hit the vine and it will delay bud break out to 10 days as mentioned in this thread. That’s how we do it.

 

[dwhill40]

Of the 15 varieties I grow, it seems Barbera likes to break first usually around the first week of April. Cab breaks mid April. I rarely worry about frost but it can happen.

Look up Grand Solar Minimum. The co-opted science community is down playing it but they do not know. History knows. Spring might be a little longer in coming for a few years.

 

[Handy Andy]

Look up Grand Solar Minimum. The co-opted science community is down playing it but they do not know. History knows. Spring might be a little longer in coming for a few years.

We dont get frost in the Azores, but we do get winds.

The sun might not be as warm for a few years. But due to global warming effects the oceans are getting hotter giving much stronger weather extending into spring time. I understand it was some late storms this year that reduced the grape harvest throughout the azores.

I am not concerned about frosts. Does pruning twice to delay the harvest stop the vines from flowering, and would this circumvent, late storms, perhaps??.