Grape Pruning for the Home Vineyard

Having a small vineyard in your yardscape is not only beautiful, but a delightful food source! With only a moderate amount of effort and upkeep, you can enjoy beautiful foliage and bountiful amounts of grapes for table use, raisins, juice or wine!

A key fact to keep in mind about grapes is that the plant ONLY fruits on same season wood. That means that any stems or cordons left from a previous season will not directly bear fruit themselves, but only on new stems that form on them. So, ongoing vigorous pruning is required to assure plant health, compactness and fruitfulness.

We’ll show you how we use the Kniffen system and the first-hand the results of pruning to create 4 lateral branches (cordons) per vine, along with a pair of renewal spurs for each cordon. The beautiful flush of growth in the spring, along with “baby” grapes forming on new growth is a real thing of beauty.

This is the second episode we’ve produced on this subject, and was filmed in later spring when growth was coming on and the finished results and growth is evident. The first episode, “Pruning Grapes for High Productivity”, was produced in very late winter and shows step by step the process of selection of canes for retention and removal. View the first episode by visiting https://youtu.be/0m5KWAXYH9Y

You’ll approach your vineyard and pruning much more confidently and effectively after enjoying these videos!