If we’re winter pruning, then Spring must be close
Maintaining a vineyard is a year-round enterprise. Even in the winter, after the vines go into a dormant state, there’s work to be done. In fact, dormant winter pruning is among the most time-consuming work of the year, and some of the most important as well, since it involves decisions that will affect not just the coming season’s growth, but the year after as well.
Most of the objectives of dormant pruning fall under the heading of “balance.” Vines will grow just fine on their own, with no pruning at all, but most of their energy will go toward producing shoots and leaves, rather than grapes. Absent any intervention, the vines will continue to grow skyward for so long as they can find support. The whole purpose of a trellis system and the pruning decisions that go with it are to force the vine to direct its energy toward the production of high-quality fruit rather than vegetative growth.
So we’re looking for balance as we decide which shoots and how many buds to retain. Prune away too much and the vine will be undercropped, producing less fruit than it can reasonably support. Prune away too little and it will be overcropped, producing a profusion of leaves and shoots, as well as an abundance of fruit that is destined to be of low quality.
During the growing season, we’ll drop some fruit from the vine, again to direct energy toward the remaining clusters in the hopes of producing more concentrated and higher-quality grapes. But the first decisions we make that will determine the quantity and quality of the season’s fruit are those made in the dead of winter.
Which is to say, when it’s cold outside. Really, really cold. Not to mention snowing every few days or so. (Or maybe it just seemed that way this winter.) Which is one of the reasons we’ve put off pruning.
The other, more noble reason for delaying our pruning, has to do with timing. It’s better not to prune too early in the season – the untouched vines will survive a cold spell much better than those that have been pruned back, and by waiting, you’ll have more options in the case of a late freeze that damages buds and shoots.
It’s helpful to be able to assess the vine late in the winter for cold injury before deciding which canes to remove and which few to retain. In our little hobby vineyard, we have the luxury of delaying for almost as long as we want to start dormant pruning. Commercial vineyards that have acres of vines to prune, don’t have that luxury. They need to start early enough to be able to finish the job before budbreak. But many vineyards employ a technique of double pruning, going through once early in the winter to trim away the shoots they know won’t be used, and returning later to finish up the job.
Our vines are all trained to a trellis system known as vertical shoot positioning, of VSP, and we have adopted a pruning method known as cane pruning. In cane pruning, most of the previous year’s growth is pruned away, and two one-year old shoots, which have now achieved the status of canes, are retained and trained in either direction along the bottom, or fruiting wire. These canes – the one-year old wood – will give rise to new shoots this summer, and these new shoots are the part of the vine that will bear fruit.
At the same time, we’ll be looking for renewal spurs below this year’s fruiting canes. These will be pruned back to one or two buds to provide the fruiting canes for the following year.
I’ve taken a class or two on pruning, and I’ve done lots of reading and studied more videos on the Internet than I can count. So, of course, I should be an expert. And in theory I am. I know a lot about the why’s and how’s of pruning. But the actual pruning – the time when you come face to face with a vine and decide what to lop off and what to keep – that’s a whole different story. I still remember my first pruning session. I was sure that I was going to destroy the vine, and I stared at it for what seemed like hours before I worked up the nerve to make that initial cut. I’ve gotten a little more confident, but only a little. I still spend way too much time on each vine. Fortunately, we only have 230 vines now, so I can get away with it.
When the Vineyard Goddess and I got out a few weeks ago – and yes, we chose a weekend when the temperatures were in the 60s – we realized that we had not maintained the vines as well as we should have in the previous year. No neglect, just the kinds of mistakes you make early on. A number of the vines were just fine, but others lacked the kind of year-old shoots we were looking for to train to the cordon wire.
So, we made some adjustments. On the vines that had perfect one-year old shoots, we cut away everything else and tied these canes down. On those that didn’t, we resorted to a different pruning method called spur or cordon pruning.
In spur pruning, a cordon is tied down to the wire and used year after year. The shoots from the previous year are pruned down to two buds, which will give rise to fruitful wood for the current season. It’s more like a haircut, and most people would say it’s a far easier method of pruning than cane pruning. And it works well for at least the first decade. At some point, however, these cordons grow thick from age and produce fewer spurs. Moreover, they’re more prone to disease. It’s the same with people. The older you get, the more opportunity your body has to develop diseases.
Which method is better? Well, they each have advantages and disadvantages. Jim Law, founder and owner of Linden Vineyards, said he started with spur pruning, which worked well for years, but eventually moved to cane pruning, after the disadvantages – disease in particular – began to outweigh the advantages.
Our thought, however, is that we’ll spur prunes those vines that need it this year, while leaving some buds that we hope will give rise to canes that can be trained to the wire in 2015. And while I remain hopeful that our vines will produce some wonderful fruit thisyear for making wine, I am confident that we’ll do even better next year and better still in each of the succeeding years. After all, this is a learning experience, and Lord knows, we’re learning.
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