More or less
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Thank you! It’s good to hear from someone more experienced that our plan is on the right track. We’re hoping it will make a lot of difference for our vines and make them easier to manage at the same time.
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I totally forgot to respond to this! Do you cut the leaves around the bunches specifically to increase airflow around them? Do you find that it makes a difference when it comes to disease or pests? Do you ever have to thin the fruit so that you have enough leaves left to ripen them?
Wow I can’t believe that works! You should post it on Small lot growers for all the city lot people without space for a trellis to see.
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I would use a single wire, rather then cattle panel, for more airflow. This is how you grow muscardines in the south, where one has a lot of black rot. If you don’t want to spray, then I would research which varieties are more resistant to black rot (eg black
Muscardines are more resistant than bronze ones).
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I would even if just for less cost, but a wire would require concreted-in posts, and digging the holes to concrete in posts is very difficult out here. Considering the number of grapes that I have and want, it’s way easier to use cattle panels and t-posts. I’m not worried about airflow, as cattle panels are just made of thick wire and allow plenty of air through (we’re not using the pipe panels, but the wire ones).
Edited to add: it’s really hard to find a full list of resistant grapes, so I look for general disease resistance when looking at a variety.
You don’t need concrete for a single wire trellis. Look up how to build one with PT wooden posts. The key are the end braces.
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All I’ve ever found are instructions that require concreting in the posts. I’ll look into your idea, but even just digging the holes for the end posts is rough (we need a pickaxe and rock breaker rod).
these are the instructions from Isons Nursery:
7. A good trellis. We recommend the One-Wire Trellis using 9-gauge wire to support the vines and 8’ pressure treated
posts. Caution: Wood preservative treated posts should be weathered prior to erecting the trellis so that excessive surface
preservatives are washed off. If posts are not weathered, vines planted adjacent to the posts can be damaged by the
wood preservative when it leaches into the root zone. Also, direct the root system away from the posts.
a) End posts should be at least four inches in diameter and eight feet long. Set the end posts three feet into the ground so
that the trellis wire will be five feet high. Bracing involves setting a post identical in size to the end post three feet deep, six
feet from the outside brace posts. Then position a 4 x 4
timber or post between the tops pf the two posts. The horizontal beam must be longer than the posts are tall. Run a
double 9-gauge wire from the top of the inside post to the bottom of the outside post. Twist the wire to tighten and secure
the brace system. In heavy soils it may be possible to us a 5 to 6 inch post and drive it with a post driver and eliminate the
bracing.
b) Line posts, (3 to 4 inches in diameter and 6 ½ feet long) so that the wire will be 5 feet high. Spacing on the line posts
should be 20 feet. We recommend row spacing 12 feet apart. (ample room for a tractor or truck to drive through)
c) Use no. 9-gauge galvanized wire for the trellis. Staple it to the tops of the line of posts with 1.5 inch staples (commonly
called horse shoe nails). Leave the staple just loose enough so that the wire is not held rigidly. If the wire is bound too
tightly to the staple it may break. The wire is brought over the top of the end post, tightened, wrapped around the end
posts and stapled.
d) Ease of training, picking and pruning, lower construction cost, time and good spray coverage are the main advantages
of the one wire trellis system. We are tried everything in our vineyards and always go back to the one-wire system.
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These are trellises for Muscardines; for other grape varieties you would place the line posts closer together.
Thank you for kindly posting that information here! I’ve been too busy to look deeper into what you were suggesting, so you’ve saved me a lot of time.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like we can use that method because it still requires us to dig large, deep holes. See, the reason we cannot do concreted posts is because digging a hole that large and that deep requires a pickaxe and rock breaker rod. It’s back-breaking work, and my husband and I both have health problems that limit what we can do before our bodies give way. That’s why, though it isn’t as cheap or pretty, we decided to go with t-posts and cattle panels. Sorry I didn’t explain it better earlier; it just didn’t occur to me.
I appreciate the information, though; maybe it will help someone else.
Grapes start developing their flower buds in the previous year. You can’t really see them, but within the bud that forms in each leaf axil are the first 8-10 nodes of next year’s shoot plus baby clusters, if any. In some grape varieties, the shoots that grow from the lowest buds have few or no clusters. These varieties must be cane pruned, otherwise you will have a very reduced crop. I believe Concord can produce some crop if spur pruned. Something like Thompson Seedless will produce virtually no fruit at all. Even with varieties that are not totally fruitless in their basal buds, the clusters that are produced may be much smaller than normal.
I think you are mixing up terms. Don’t feel bad about it. There’s a lot of jargon in grape-growing.
A shoot is the part of a vine from the current season that is still green and tender. As the shoot matures and hardens off, it’s referred to as a cane. Once pruning time comes, you can take a cane and tie it to your trellis and cut off the rest. This is your fruiting cane for the coming growing season, since it is where your fruiting shoots will sprout from. Alternatively, you can cut each cane 2-3 buds above the base, leaving you with spurs. Over the years, spurs accumulate wood and gradually get longer, developing into arms.
Typically, you prune spurs only in winter. If you left 2 buds the previous year, you cut between the top and bottom bud and cut the cane that grew from the bottom bud to 2 buds, forming your new spur.
As long as your shoots are around 4 feet long they have enough leaves to more than adequately ripen two clusters. Reducing the number of clusters to one per spur means cutting 75% of your fruit (remember that each spur produces 2 shoots, each with 2 clusters). Each spur should give you 4-6 clusters. If you are getting much less than that, either your vine is too young to fruit, the variety is not suitable for spur pruning, or the canopy is too dense and basal buds aren’t getting enough light to set next year’s clusters.
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Thank you SO much! It makes so much sense now! I knew the difference between spurs and canes, but I didn’t know the term shoot. I feel much better knowing that I can leave more than one bunch on a spur, and even on a shoot. I love eating grapes, grape juice, raisins, and grape jelly, so I was frustrated at the thought of having very little fruit to play with.
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Wow. I have read explanations of the terminology and pruning for months and not really gotten it until reading yours with the cluster info included. Thank you!
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Excellent explanation! I have read a more concise version: It’s about vigor. Varieties best for spur-pruning are more vigorous – that is, their canes produce fruit right away, on the first few nodes of the cane. Varieties best for cane-pruning are less vigorous – that is, their canes keep growing out, node by node, without setting fruit, until near the end of their potential length. So if you shorten a cane in a cane-pruned variety, you cut off the farther-out nodes that will produce fruit.
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An EXCELLENT resource for all these questions is Lon Rombough’s book “The Grape Grower: A Guide to Organic Viticulture.” It has very clear explanations of vine growth, and how pruning and training interact with what the vine wants to do. Also lots of photos and drawings, sections on pests and diseases, and fairly thorough lists of grape varieties, with their pruning type, disease resistance, where and how they like to grow, etc.
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Is there a particular pruning method you recommend for Concord @GrapeNut ?
I don’t know how much new info I’ll glean from it, but it’s worth a read. Thanks for the suggestion!
Vigor has to do with shoot growth, not fruit production. Many varieties that require cane pruning like Thompson Seedless and labrusca types are actually on the higher end of the vigor spectrum. And on sites that promote more vigor, cane pruning can reduce some of that vigor (less permanent wood = less carbohydrate storage = less fuel for shoot growth).
I haven’t actually grown Concord, but most of the literature says to cane prune.
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That came out snobbier than I meant. Sorry, I was tired when I wrote that. I’m actually pretty excited to read the book. Thank you for suggesting it!