Pruning: Decisions,
decisions Do you ever ask yourself a question and then answer it?
By Gary Strachan W
ell, here we are again. It’s time to prune. I like pruning. Cool crisp air, bright sun at mid-
day, birds starting to return. The ground is still frozen, and depending on where you are, there are probably still pockets of snow around.
Hmm. What about these scarred canes with black patches? Damn. I wanted to keep that nice strong cane but I can’t be sure the primary buds are viable with that much mildew infection. Maybe I better lay down a reserve cane along side of it just to make sure I can fill the canopy. I can always remove it later if I have more viable buds than I need. Whoops, I dropped that blackened cane straight onto the ground. I ought to know better than that. Mildew and other fungal infections over-winter on infected wood and dried berries. Those nasty looking clusters that we left to hang are loaded with mold spores. As soon as the weather warms up and we get a rainfall, the spores will be carried on the breeze and will be ready to infect any new green growth they land on.
I hate doing it, but the diseased canes have to raked up, removed from the vineyard and burned. I’ll have to be especially careful to cover everything with my dormant sprays this year: good old Lime Sulfur and Soluble Oil. I wonder if I should try an experiment this year. Down at the bottom of this hill there is a really vigorous patch. I hate having to go through that section and hedge and top it three times each summer. It seems such a waste to throw away perfectly good leaves and canes when the plant could be utilizing photosynthesis to manufacture more and better fruit. Besides, it seems to slow down fruit ripening every time I hedge. That vigorous dense spot is always the first to have problems like mildew or
34 GARY STRACHAN
A partially pruned hanging cane vineyard. Note the gathered canes ready to be removed.
leafhoppers. I wonder if there is some way that I could adapt to the plant’s growth instead of trying to control it? Maybe I could leave a couple of extra arms on my VSP and carry a bit more fruit to use up that vigour, say with a Scott Henry trellis, or I could make the bud count just a little more dense by changing to a Pendulum Bow. It means I have to string an extra fruiting wire for a Scott Henry, or an extra pair of catch wires for the Pendulum Bow. I could also move the fruiting zone to the top of the trellis, like a Hudson River Umbrella. I hate the way the hanging cane systems look during the early part of the summer with canes sticking out everywhere, but you can’t fault the spray penetration and fruit exposure. If I can’t get the canes to drop down by themselves, I may have to install a couple of training wires to sweep the canes downward. I expect that cane elongation will stop immediately after I force the canes down. I’ll have to be careful to not tuck the canes too soon or the experimental panels will be even more unruly and ugly. They’ll push laterals and just keep on growing out of control instead of ripening fruit the way I want them to. It’s a dilemma.
I like cane pruning but it’s not for everyone. It can’t be mechanically pre- pruned as you can with spur pruning. On the other hand when you do your bud count per plant, you have a more accurate determination of your crop load with cane pruning. There is far less shoot thinning to do later in the season with cane pruning.
Some varieties such as the muscats and table grapes dislike spur pruning so much that the first couple of buds on a spur may not be consistently fruitful. That’s really irritating behaviour, because it commits you to either use cane pruning or make your spurs a little longer and deal with the extra canes later in the season.
If you combine inconsistent
fruitfulness to the possibility of poor bud set during a cold damp spring, it’s enough to make a cat cry.
Pruning is the only time of year when I get to examine the problems of each plant and each area of the vineyard. It’s the most valuable time of the year for a grower.
On the other hand, I’ve reached the end of this block. I’m dirty and sweaty, and I think I’ll kick the mud off my boots and go for a beer.
GRAPEVINE SALES
Canadian Grafted Potted Custom Grafted Imported
905-984-4324 •
sales@gwnvines.com www.gwnvines.com
Gemmrich W. Nursery Inc., 278 Line 5, RR4, Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario L0S 1J0 “Our business is grown on good roots!”
British Columbia FRUIT GROWER • Spring 2011
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