Still Pruning!

It seems like I'll never get done pruning this year. Everytime I get a few hours that I can dedicate to pruning, we get rain. I'm not going to complain about the rain at this point since we are already a couple inches behind for the year and the last few years, we've been in a drought. Its good for the grapes to get the water this time of year when we don't have to worry about berries splitting. In the new vineyard at the home farm, I sub-soiled the entire hillside before we started planting. That helps to keep some of the water from running down the hill. Speaking of water for the grapes, I'm installing what I call poor man's drip irrigation. I've mounted a 100 gallon livestock watering tank on a three point hitch carry-all for the tractor and replaced the drain plug in the bottom with a valve. As I plant each row, I try to collect enough old leaky water hoses to stretch the entire length of the row. Then I lay the hose down the row and drill a small hole in the hose beside each vine. At that point, I can fill the watering tank on the tractor with water from the spigot at the barn and drive it out to the vineyard. I park the tractor at the top end of the row and hook the hose to the valve on the tank and let it fly. It takes about an hour to empty the tank and all of the water soaks into the ground. While this may not be a perfect situation, it works surprisingly well for very little investment. I feel like that in their first couple years, the vines are very susceptible to drought stress.

John Deere 2010 with livestock tank on three point hitch

Poor man's drip irrigation

As I've mentioned before, I'm giving the Chambourcin vines at the Naked Creek Vineyard a major haircut this year. As I get to each vine, I try think about how I want the vine structure to be years down the road. You can see some before and after pictures of a random vine below. I've also read in some of Jim Law's articles about his success with cane pruning his vinifera vines where he's had problems with phomopsis, so I'm thinking I may get some added benefit of reduced disease pressure as a result of these pruning decisions. Last year we had problems with both phomopsis and black rot in the Naked Creek Vineyard. I'm trying to tailor my spray schedule to anticipate and limit the fungal problems this year.

Here is a before pruning shot of a Chambourcin vine

Here is an after pruning picture of the same vine

If you click on the pictures they will blow up to full size (warning: if you are on dial-up they are big pics) and you will notice in the before pruning picture that the vine structure needs some work. The cordon on the left side of the trunk only had a couple canes last year. The internodal space is way to large. On the right side of the cordon, there is the same problem along with way to much cane crowding toward then end of the cordon. So, I decided it was time to start over on this vine (and many others), so I removed the two cordons at the top of the trunk and selected two healthy canes from near the head of the trunk to lay down. These two canes will be the cordons as they mature.

Here's a shot of the Naked Creek Vineyard in the Spring