I prefer spur pruned grape varieties for those new to training grapevines, especially over an arbor or pergola. Grape varieties that require cane pruning, like “Concord” and “Thompson Seedless” are not only more difficult to prune for the novice but also less attractive when their conspicuous dormant canes are left for fruit production. Grape varieties that require being annually pruned back to two bud spurs, like the Flame Seedless variety, develop into the most attractive and uniform looking arbors. The growers I met only produced one variety of grapes: Muscat of Alexandria. To limit the overall size of their vines to the dimensions of their greenhouses they dug out an eight foot cube in the ground and would compact the sides of the hole before back filling with top soil. They controlled the growth and vigor of their grapevines by constraining the root system. Later I visited him in Japan where I saw Japanese gr a pe grow e r s train their grapevines over arbors. Naosuke Nii, a plant hormone researcher from Japan. As a UC Davis graduate student I befriended Dr. Japanese grape growers are experts at pruning and thinning fruit, their g ra p e c l us t ers contained very large berries. Once the arbor is enveloped by growth, grape clusters can be allowed to form. Without flowers or clusters of grapes all the energy produced or stored as starch is directed to new and vigorous growing shoots covering the arbor. Many are surprised when I direct them to cut off all the flowers in the spring but eliminating fruit production allows the grapevine to use all its energy to envelop the arbor as quickly as possible. It is on these cordons that arms and spurs will form with subsequent annual pruning.Īllow no flowers to develop into clusters of grapes until shoots and leaves cover the arbor. I direct the vine’s growth above the arbor so that the main cordons (branches of the vine) run along the edge of the arbor and secondary cordons run perpendicular to the primary cordon and spaced at least two feet apart. New growth will vigorously emerge and begin to grow over the horizontal supports of your arbor. Grape buds are mature enough to start growing into lateral shoots twenty inches below the tip of any growing shoot. To do this, I allow the single shoot that will become my trunk to grow until it reaches a height 20 inches above the point I want the vine to branch. Intertwined shoots and leaves compete for space and sunlight and quickly become difficult to thin out.īe sure to train your grapevine to branch at the top of your arbor. I limit young grapevines to one trunk to avoid congestion and competition that two or more trunks promote. Today, when asked to prune grapevines already trained over an arbor, I commonly find several trunks growing from the same root system. That afternoon under the Winkler vine I learned I’d have to limit any vine to one trunk. I saw myself someday training grapes over structures in the landscape. I tried to imagine the one thousand pounds of grapes I was told this single vine produced annually. Three hand lengths almost circumnavigated the trunk which supported this vine that covered the area of a classroom. As I walked under the largest grapevine I had seen, I estimated the area it covered and put my hands around the trunk to guesstimate its circumference. Standing under a canopy of shade created by an arbor can take me back to my encounter with a well trained grape arbor. It happened one afternoon when I walked out to the viticulture block of the university farm at Davis, California to locate the Winkler Vine mentioned in class.
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