Why Pruning Matters

Pruning is a key part of every vineyard the world over.  It can be the make or the break in producing good quality grapes.   

The Vinehouse Pruning team tackle a particularly vigorous Phoenix vine

You could ask, why do we need to prune? After all, vines are designed to creep and spread out. If you want to create an ornamental plant, then absolutely leave the vine alone, but if you want to produce quality grapes then pruning is needed. 

If you don’t prune:

• The vine grows out of shape with all fruit growing on new growth.  It is soon very hard to manage the canopy and shoots and know where the fruit is. 

• The vine become leggy and spreads out with dense pockets of canopy making it difficult to spray and keep them disease free

• The energy produced by the vine is spread over a larger canopy often with lots more grapes making it harder to ripen any of the grapes. Loads of unripe grapes doesn’t help anyone.

So, by pruning, we focus the vines energy to produce quality grapes, and have a vine shaped in a way that helps us to keep it disease free with tidy rows. 

There are various styles of pruning with the two major categories being cane and spur pruning:

• Spur pruning is where you create two horizontal spur branches along the fruiting wire in opposite directions from the central trunk which grow new shoots each year. This technique is suited to warmer climates.

• Cane pruning is where you keep two canes very close to the trunk, grown in the season as the fruit canes for the new season and remove everything else. This technique is suited to cooler climates where spurs could rot or get frost damage in the winter

  
  

All new growth is tied vertically to the trellising known as vertical shoot pruning. This makes canopy management activities much easier. In the UK we use cane pruning in what is called a double or single guyot method where each season one or two canes are tied to the fruiting wire after pruning.  

The pruning is done when the grapevines are dormant in the period December to March and requires each vine to be optimised based on the previous seasons growth. You will find that compromises are needed on a vine by vine basis as nature doesn’t always follow the same script, so pruning is a chance to re-train plants not growing where you want them.     

We also use the pruning time in the vineyard to inspect each vine and look for damage or disease scars, again by removing any wood which doesn’t look right. 

Pruning is a key part of your vineyard maintenance regime and sets the vineyard up for the next two years, so it important to get it right.  If you want to learn more do sign up to one the pruning courses held at The Vinehouse UK. 

See our upcoming sessions here: Training