Grape vines can prove a hard task for beginners, but this is nothing to be afraid of. Proper pruning will help maintain a grapevine’s potential of producing a good quality fruit crop, develop good vine structure, increase sunlight exposure into the canopy, promote the development of next year’s fruiting wood, and potentially reduce disease and insect pressure. It's important to prune young vines. How and When to Prune a Grapevine. Nope, things just don’t work like this, so let me be straight forward with you. In order to grow the vines… one needs to cut them. Whether you are growing honeysuckle, clematis, or grapes, it's important to prune your vines regularly. So here we will not talk about how you can become a perfect grape vine pruning master by just reading this. Pruning grape vines isn’t something you do for cosmetic reasons. Alex Moeller from the Oregon Wine Research Institute at Oregon State University gives a short lesson on best practices for pruning wine grape vines. Pruning an old, overgrown grapevine requires a form of severe pruning that removes about 90 percent of the plant’s total growth. Part of the series: Gardening: Pruning. When it comes to pruning grapes, the most common mistake people make is not pruning hard enough. When the plant sprouts in the spring and grows a new shoot, that shoot turns from green to brown at the end of the growing season. There are dozens, if not hundreds of different methods of training grapes, depending on the grape variety, the country of origin and even region, and whether you are growing table grapes or wine grapes. Notes and observations During the fourth summer, my vines produced their first grapes. Training and yearly pruning your grapevines is crucial, otherwise you will end up with an overgrown entangled mess and a reduced harvest. Let’s look at how to prune grapes. It happens and it will continue to happen even on experienced folks. Grape gardeners often become confused as to what should be pruned off and when. How to Prune Grape Vines. Proper summer pruning will allow sunlight to penetrate through the leaves to improve the color of the grapes as well as controlling disease. One of the common problems with homegrown grapevines is that they have far too many grapes, both in number of bunches and per bunch.This results in small fruit of low quality. And it should be noted that summer pruning is not a one-off event. The secret is to prune them hard every year, aiming to ensure your vine bears far fewer grapes than it’s capable of producing. How to Prune Old and Overgrown Grapevines. Create spurs by pruning the stems to two buds. The basics of pruning vineyards are relatively simple. Similar to human hair, the end product is healthier when it is trimmed regularly and on a schedule. Remove all other growth. Grape vines produce fruit on one-year-old wood, and that’s it – seriously. "One of the main jobs of pruning is to tell the vine how many bunches of grapes you want it to produce and to ripen in the year," he said. Grapes should be pruned during their dormancy, usually in late winter. To spur prune: Select 20 to 30 stems, which grew from the cordons (full number not shown here). Naturally, summer pruning of grapevines implies that your vines are mature enough to produce large bunches of fruit. Regular pruning is essential for controlling grape canes and producing quality fruit yields. Grape vines should be pruned every year. Pruning allows air and sunlight to reach the inside of the vines, giving them the, sunlight, air flow and nutrition they need to thrive. In the fourth winter, I started maintenance pruning, or selectively cutting back the stems. To produce healthy wine grape clusters… pruning is a critical component in the growing process. If you don’t prune your vines, you won’t get much fruit. 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