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For many centuries, people have known about such a wonderful berry as grapes, but the pruning of grapes for the winter itself came to us relatively recently. The inhabitants of planet Earth thought of such a technology of care only a few hundred years ago thanks to an ordinary donkey, and this happened in Ancient Rome.
Benefits of pruning for the winter
The grapes themselves become more delicious due to pruning for the winter. Even the growers of ancient Rome learned this lesson for themselves a long time ago. This technology began to spread to other countries and developed rapidly. To date, pruning grapes can significantly increase its yield.
In addition, this technology allows you to control the growth of bushes, eliminating their excessive growth. When to prune grapes for the winter has a positive effect on the ease of care for them. She is able to make the fruits much tastier and more affordable at harvest time.
If the gardener decides to shelter the grapes from negative factors in the form of strong gusts of wind, then pruning should be carried out in the autumn.
This is argued by the possibility of easier care for the bushes, a significant increase in their protection against the coming frosts, and by the onset of autumn, the number of fruits increases significantly.
The decision to prune the bushes in the spring is completely fatal, since the wounds caused by various factors in the cold seasons heal with difficulty. Cutting the vine in the initial place of sap flow will lead to the appearance of so-called “tears”, which has every chance of soon destroying the plant or, at best, reducing future yields.
You can cut the grapes as early as March, provided that the temperature of the environment is not lower than five degrees Celsius. In this case, it is necessary to prune very carefully, and only those young bushes that have not entered fruiting. You can also prune seedlings planted in autumn.
When it comes to pruning in the summer, it can hardly be called pruning, as such, and although it would seem that winter is far away, it is necessary to prepare for it in advance. During this period, it is necessary to clean the bushes from diseased and unnecessary branches, mint, pinch and pinch shoots on them, but it is necessary to cut them very carefully. This is a kind of disease prevention, the result of which is not only an improvement in the health of the bushes and an increase in the level of air intake, but also an increase in the level of lighting, which allows you to end up with excellent grapes.
In summer, such a kind of preventive pruning of bushes also results in facilitating the flow of nutrients to their key parts. The destruction of unnecessary branches opens up more space for healthy branches that will grow by next year. In addition, one should not be afraid to slightly reduce and thin out the number and density of leaves. This will allow the grapes to develop and breathe properly.
All of the above makes it clear that pruning grapes before the winter period is an important step in caring for its bushes. The only thing a novice gardener needs to know about this issue is how to properly prune.
There are many ways, and much also depends on the period of the year itself and on how old or young the grapes are.
Step-by-step cutting instructions
In the case of autumn pruning, it is best to do it in two stages, which will make sure that the best vines in terms of fruiting will survive until next year. This is one way to prune grapes for the winter:
- The first stage begins after the harvest. It consists in cleaning the bushes from those branches that have already passed the fruiting stage, from the tops and weak shoots that prevent the further normal and uniform development of the grapes.
- The second stage, which marks the main pruning, should begin a couple of weeks after the leaf fall, that is, before the shelter of the entire vineyard. Already by that time, a certain amount of carbohydrates in young shoots will go to the roots. When a harsh winter comes and some of the vines on the trellis suffer from frost – do not worry, as this will harden them in the fight against low temperatures. Do not forget that the bushes should be cut at a temperature not lower than three degrees Celsius, otherwise the weakness of the branches is inevitable.
When the time comes for the need to prune young seedlings, it is unlikely that significant difficulties will arise in the process. Of course, this is provided that every year unnecessary shoots are regularly removed and, with the help of a gardener, the grapes form a certain, most convenient form of a bush, as a result of which three to eight peculiar “sleeves” remain that will bear fruit in the future. If we are talking about older bushes, then you will need to tinker with them a little longer.
Despite the neglected state of the bushes, when cutting grapes for the winter seems to be an exorbitant task, there are already prepared pruning schemes, so that even a “green” gardener will be able to carry it out without problems. Bushes should be cut as follows:
- With the onset of the first decade of the month of September, perennial sleeves should be cleared of young shoots that have appeared before the first wire, which is located at a height of fifty centimeters above the ground.
- Those shoots that have grown on the sleeves above the level of the next wire (it should be at a distance of about thirty centimeters from the first wire) should be measured and cut off the top along with all side stepchildren by 10% of their length. Since winter does not spare anyone, you should first familiarize yourself with the detailed pruning schemes. Thus, one picture or two will help to save the whole crop.
- With the arrival of mid-October, it is time to choose some of the most developed shoots, located at the height of the above two wires.
- Do you want delicious well-groomed grapes? Then the next step is to trim the lowest shoot that has grown from the outside of the sleeve. It should be cut so that a few eyes remain. The work done at this stage will be the result of the creation of the so-called replacement knot.
- The last step is the formation of a fruit arrow, after which no winter will be terrible for grapes. You should cut off the shoot, which is higher on the other side of the sleeve. The very number of eyes should reach the diameter of this shoot, but one more pair and the grapes will not face the problem of damping and freezing.
Such a scheme will allow only the most persistent and fruitful trunks to remain, which are called branches perpendicular to the ground. To prevent winter from bringing unwanted surprises to the vineyard, the final steps to complete the preparations for the upcoming meeting should be the following actions:
- Those branches that remain should be removed from the trellis and placed in the direction in which the vine grows.
- Fix them on the ground in any convenient way and now the winter is actually defeated.
Many novice growers are sometimes interested in the question: when to cut grapes for the winter. For experienced vineyard owners, this also means leaving a few buds on the replacement knot and a dozen or so buds directly on the fruit arrow. In fact, this is mostly a banal safety net, since winter is just around the corner. Another reason is that such seemingly superfluous buds in the spring make it possible to understand which shoots sheltered the most lush inflorescences of grapes, before completely protecting the bushes from unnecessary green shoots.
Returning to the fruit arrow and the ten buds on it, the need for them is explained very simply. The whole salt is that they are formed mainly in June, and in this month the temperature is quite low. From the first to the seventh bud, the inflorescences are medium, but by the thirteenth (maximum to the fifteenth) bud, the largest inflorescences are obtained, which will finally form around July. It is in this month that there is enough sunlight for grapes and the air temperature is also acceptable.
Pruning is a complex matter, so it should be done very meticulously and carefully to avoid unwanted damage to the bushes.
Video “Pruning grapes for the winter”
Video about pruning one-year-old, two-year-old and three-year-old grapes; shelter grapes for the winter.