How to Prune Backyard Grape Vines

Backyard Grape gardeners often get confused on what should be pruned off their vines and when. The purpose of pruning is to obtain maximum yields of high quality grapes.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Pruning Shears
• Thin Stainless wire

1. 

   The Most desirable time to prune grapevines is late winter or early spring. The extent of pruning is dictated by the amount of new growth.
   Taking out the old canes and letting the new ones thrive is called " balanced pruning"

2. 

   Take a look at your vine, look for 2-3 yr old canes.. prune these out trying to maintain at least 3 thriving canes from each vine. Prune out all growth from the ground to the first horizontal support

3. 

   This training system is designed to encourage new fruit production at the specific positions of the vine. Dormant pruning can be done anytime between leaf drop and bud break in the spring.check out resources below for pruning shear site.

4. 

   Grape growers often prune vines with the intent to achieve a balance between fruit and shoot growth.. a canopy that is too crowded is not good for either. Excessive pruning can reduce the fruit output. For most gardeners, pruning grapevines is relatively easy with a basic understanding of the pruning principals, the right tools and some courage

Tips & Warnings

• Use stainless wire to tie off your vines and create horizontal supports
• cross over shears are the best
• don't prune to early in fall
• don't prune after march 15th

Resources

• pruning shears

[static404]

on 11/26/2009 Another great article. Keep up the good work.

[caspita]

on 11/24/2009 Prune Backyard Grape Vines is an important process. My grandmother grew grapes and she made grape "everything"...pies, jelly, cookies, you name it and it had grapes in it.

[lighthouse1958]

on 11/18/2009 When I was small we had a big grape vine on the side of our porch. We have been wanting to start us now on our fence line. They are delicious. Pruning is very important for new growth and it makes bigger and better grapes for the next year. 5*

[solutionsforu]

on 11/9/2009 Excellent article on How to Prune Backyard Grape Vines. My parents have grape vines in the yard - I'll pass on the info 5*

[lynsuz12]

on 11/1/2009 Great article, good detail.