I am wondering about pruning concord grapes. I have moved into a place that has been overgrown withthe grapes. Some of the branches are at least 20 feet. I would like to prune them all back to fit over an arbour. I am curios on how far to prune the plant back. There are two stocks.
Grapes produce fruit on the current seasons growth, they therefore need to be pruned back hard each year. January is a good time to prune. There are several methods of pruning grapes largely based on the type of structure you have. i will assume the arbor you mentioned is an overhead type. Select one or two srong canes growing off each of the two stocks high up where the overhang of the arbor begins., tie these in place and cut off the length that goes off the arbor. All other growths can be cut back hard to one or two buds. After you have fruit set, and they are about pea size, cut off the ends of the fruiting canes 5 leaves above the fruiting cluster. All thats left is to hope for a good summer and enjoy the fruit. Tony
Thanks for info on concord grapes. I finally got fruit this year but I didn't know how to prune them (it...I only have one stem)
cut the fruiting stem back hard to a bud somewhere near the height of the arbor, you should get more than one stem growing from this point.....good luck
Hi poh, betty and Tony. What is your main purpose for growing the vine? Do you want to cover the arbor so it will look nice or do you want lots of grape clusters? Tony, why do you cut the bearer back to 5 leaves from the cluster? On a normal trellis system, would you cut concords to cane bearers or short bearers (spurs)? Thanks
the reason for cutting the vine back is to concentrate growing energies into the fruit instead of growing more vine, fruit will therefore grow larger
Concord grapes will produce better fruit on cane pruning as opposed to spur pruning. If you want better fruit quality you can remove some of the fruit. The remaining fruit will be larger and better quality. Follow this link it will give you some basic rules on pruning http://ohioline.osu.edu/hyg-fact/1000/pdf/1428.pdf The vineyard i've worked in had Concords that were planted in 1926. We used cane pruning and cluster thinning to improve fruit and bunch quality. Hope this helps Nice to see you on this website Daniel. Cheers
