Reclamation project?

[yakhunter]

Hi everyone,

I posted about this int eh general forum the other day because I did not see this one. Perhaps all of you can help me.

I know a tiny tiny bit about growing wine grapes. Two tinies.

I grew up on Cape Cod, and our house had a bunch of wild grape vines up the driveway. Turns out, those are wine grape vines someone gave my dad many moons ago. No idea what varieties, but my mother thinks there are some Catawbas in the mix and dad has been gone over 10 years.

Mom had some trees cut down this spring and with the sunlight, the grapes have gone crazy. I am now wondering if I can salvage these vines to produce some wine grapes.

I will be looking at them soon. Is there a limit to how much you can prune without killing the vine? For apple trees, they say no more than a third per year. I would have to take like 80% of these vines to make them near manageable. SHould I do that over many years, or can I chop the crappola out of them come winter?

I also have some pictures and will get more if anyone could help me with ID'ing them. Let me know and I will post them.


Thanks in advance, and have a great weekend!

 

[pjd]

I say chop the crappola out of them! Grapes are very hardy and sometimes I believe you just cant kill them. I would prune them back to bare bones and they will explode in the spring.

 

[grapeman]

Like Phil said, you can prune them way back and they will send out lots of new growth next spring that you can train to the way you wish. It may take a year off to get grapes, but it should bear just fine after that.

 

[spaniel]

Like Phil said, you can prune them way back and they will send out lots of new growth next spring that you can train to the way you wish. It may take a year off to get grapes, but it should bear just fine after that.

+1, do not be afraid to cut. If need be it will likely send new shoots up from the roots.

 

[salcoco]

I would prune the grapes to a high cordon trellis. this has the top wire at about six feet. Prune so that one cordon or branch (if it was a tree) from each side of the trunk is tied to the trellis wire. If possible leave about 10-15 buds on each cordon(branch)
Prune off everything else. do this after grapes are dormant. the plant will produce grapes next year. Get smart on fungicide diseases and insect damage in your area. spray accordingly next year and you should have a bountiful harvest.

 

[yakhunter]

Cool! Thanks Sal et al.