Pruning Grapes

Growing grapes and making wine out of them, has been in practice since the beginnings of farming tradition. In order to maintain a healthy grapevine, it takes work and dedication. Pruning grapes is part of the needed maintenance for a health crop.

Grapevines, like most other plants, require regular weeding, pest control and pruning in order to give a prosperous harvest. Since it can take up to 3 years for a vine to give fruit, this time allows the grower to tame the plant’s growth -and production- through pruning.

What is Pruning Grapes & Why is it Employed?

Pruning grapes is the action of clipping back shoots and cutting excess foliage to control the plant’s growth and to ensure that no energy is being spent feeding dry or unnecessary plant sections.

Grapevines are trained to maintain a consistent plant shape, size and productivity; a process that takes about the time it takes to grow your first harvest.

The Pruning Grapes Technique

After the trellis is set up and the grapevine is planted, vines will be permitted to grow from one main shoot that is tied vertically to the trellis. Any other shoots must be clipped back to prevent their growth.

After the following dormant period, you must establish what will be the arms of the grapevine where your fruit will grow on. To do this, you tie two of the shoots that emerge from main shoot, horizontally onto the trellis. Make sure to trim back all other shoots to prevent their growth.

After this step, the grapevine will begin to take shape on its own, with a pruning during the dormant season to help the plant.

Pruning grapes during dormant seasons is crucial to the harvest of healthy and flavorful grapes.

Benefits of Pruning Grapes

The way in which you will prune your grapes once they have taken shape, depends entirely on the type of grape that you choose to grow. If you’ve chosen a hybrid grape, you know these varieties are suitable for the winter since they endure both cold weathers, and many diseases. As they generally produce less foliage, they will generally require less work than a regular European variety of grapes.

Pruning will rid your grapevines of fruiting canes or spurs from previous years that are no longer productive. Vines’ canes only produce fruit during the first year of growth, so new, healthy canes must be grown consistently to secure your next harvest.

Another benefit of pruning is the ability to reduce the amount of foliage in your vine, as well having control over your grapevine’s production. The amount of shoots that you clip will be proportional to size of your crop. If your crop seems to have excess foliage that creates a shady canopy, make sure to increase your regular pruning in order to maximize the amount of sunlight that the vines receive.

Tool for Pruning

There are various hand tools that will assist you in your grapevine pruning: loppers, handsaws and hand-pruners are some of the most common.

As a grower, you must be very careful not to injure or damage your grapevines during pruning, so as not to jeopardize their future productivity. When removing canes that are one year of age, a hand pruner is effective; while older ‘branches’ of thick wood are better pruned using a handsaw or lopper.

Pruning is a fairly simple process that grape growers consistently rely on to obtain plentiful, healthy crops. Even though it  will take some time and effort to tame your grapevine, it will be very well worth the effort once you collect your first harvest of perfect wine-making grapes.