Who has pruned their vines already?

[grapeman]

Nice. Green grass in February. Send some of the warmth east please. Warmest day here all winter. It is expected to get to 31F here today and tomorrow a high of 3F and low of -12 again......................... Oh and it is snowing again.................

 

[LoveTheWine]

Nice. Green grass in February. Send some of the warmth east please. Warmest day here all winter. It is expected to get to 31F here today and tomorrow a high of 3F and low of -12 again......................... Oh and it is snowing again.................

Ouch, you who are out east are really getting hit this year
It has been above freezing here for most the winter and completely snow free.
Hopefully your weather starts to let up soon.

 

[garymc]

Spaniel, did you ever get the neighbor's attention? Next time, pics of the tracks, the weeds, and the grape leaves would both convince him and put a fright into him when he thinks about his liability.

 

[garymc]

I started pruning my muscadines yesterday. We still have snow here, but no freezing temperatures forecast.

 

[LoveTheWine]

Vines are coming along nicely. Probably a foot of growth per shoot every few days right now!

 

[hounddawg]

do you tend to treat Musca dines the same as grapes, I have lived on this property since 1981, I have tons of musca dine vines going to the tree tops, never not even one fruit, so 2 years go I cut a tree with vines on it, eased the vines out, an ran em on my chain link fence, last year I got 2 small bunches,(WERE ATE ON THE SPOT,) BUT THIS YEAR THEY ARE LOADED, NOW WITH THAT BEING SAID I TRAVELED THE U.S.A. AS A Construction superintendent so I was gone a whole lot, and cant swear they never bared before, I worked 84 hours a week, so when I came home on short stents I never looked around, I stayed out all summer till dear season came in and stayed till after new years, maybe I notice now being disabled, and with nothing elese to do started planting more fruit trees, more barriers, and so on, I know I took the long way round, but do I need to cut back yearly, and when FEB maybe, how much and it has 4 vines fron one root wad, that makes me think long before me someone else might of trimed them,
I have no clue about vines
thank you
dawg

 

[garymc]

I have been pruning mine very similar to grapes. Trying to keep spurs separate by the width of my hand, pruning back last year's shoot to 2 to 4 buds. I have a friend who started this year cutting away stuff that's crowded under and around the arms and leaving last years shoots 12 to 18 inches. He has a lot of vines with a cane from last year that he left at a foot or more in length with 6 or 8 or more shoots with clusters, often 2 clusters, on each shoot. We'll see what works. Both of us have a lot of clusters of blossoms or itty bitty muscadines. I can't tell if they've bloomed yet when they're smaller than a pinhead. It's also possible to let a vine try to put on so many grapes that they're unable to ripen. I have vines blooming in August when I know they'll never mature, so I snip those off. You can also get a vine to bear so heavily that a bad winter will do it more damage because it's all pooped out. You can cut a tremendous amount of wood off a muscadine. Below is a before and after pruning on one of my young muscadines on a Geneva double curtain trellis. I may have pruned more off after the after picture. I think I cut back that cane going up and to the left.

 

[garymc]

All of my vines are named varieties except a couple that were purchased at a nursery and they were mislabeled. So I have no experience with wild muscadines. I have seen a lot of wild muscadine vines in Arkansas, but I have never seen a wild muscadine with a grape on it. They have to get spread by seeds, so some of them have to have grapes or they wouldn't exist. Some people tell me there are male muscadines in the wild which will never bear one grape. I've never read that from a researcher. So I don't know if it's just the lack of care and pruning, or if the nicely bearing vines you buy from nurseries have been bred and selected from thousands of vines to be good bearers, or what.