How do you prune grapes?

Clayton, NY(Zone 4a)

Could you help me??

Thanks,

Kirk

Pruning and Training Grapes
To have productive grape vines that produce quality fruit, the vines must be trained and pruned to a definite system. Compared to other fruit plants in your garden, grapes are pruned rather severely. To properly prune a grape plant, you must understand some basic terminology pertaining to grapes:

Arm or Cordon-- short branch of wood extending laterally from trunk;

Cane-- one-year-old fruiting wood;

Cane bud-- located at a node on the cane, it produces the fruit shoot;

Internodes-- the portion of a stem between two nodes;

Node-- joint on a shoot or cane where buds and leaves are located;

Renewal spur-- a cane pruned to two buds;

Shoot-- current season growth of wood from bud, produces leaves, flowers, and fruit;

Spur-- a cane pruned to four or fewer buds;

Sucker-- a shoot that develops from the lower trunk or from under ground.

Knowing the fruiting habit of grapes is essential to properly understand grape pruning. Buds on one-year-old dormant wood (canes) produce next year's shoots on which the fruit clusters or bunches develop. Each shoot produces from zero to four or more bunches.
There are many training systems for grapes. Each has its own advantages and disadvantages. In addition, some systems are better adapted for one cultivar of grape.

While the four-cane Kniffen system is probably the most widely used training system in Nebraska for American hybrid grapes, there are other training systems that are probably superior. The Single Curtain Cordon system, either High or Low wire, is probably the best single training system for most of our grape cultivars.

(information taken from following link.)
http://www.ianr.unl.edu/pubs/horticulture/g618.htm#pruning

the following link actually shows good pictures and tells how you should prune grapes.
http://www.ourgardengang.com/grapestrain.htm



San Diego, CA(Zone 10)

Thanks for the hyperlink - told me all I needed to know!!

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