You can see why I traced the branches in these pictures. They are hard to visualize as full images.
There are several things to notice.
- The pole is not straight and is made of bamboo. I have gone to using rebar lately because it does not rot off like this. It is important to keep the vine on the straight and narrow from the start – which I did not do here.
- The downward canes have been trimmed off.
- All the canes are shorter. I prefer the first one or two buds on a cane. This is called “spur pruning’. There are other methods which lay down a new cane each year.
- I have fanned out the canes and tied them to the cordon wire.
- There will be more pruning as the vine grows to insure that air and light get to the interior. All the grape clusters will be within 3 or 4 nodes of last year’s cane on the new canes for this year. Later on I will thin out leaves from the first two nodes. This keeps down leaf hoppers, allows more light to hit the clusters – which hastens and heightens ripeness – and if needs be, allows better access for spraying under the leaves where leaf hoppers propagate.
Met you at the farmers market a couple weeks ago and appreciate the information in your catalog and on your web site! Thanks!
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