hi everyone, my vines seem to be dying and i need help. in the spring i pruned my vines and they seemed healthy, good buds and the canes seemed great, nice lime green and bled nicely when cut. three weeks later the canes look dead and no action from the buds. when i cut into them now they are dry and dead. the main stalks seem more black then brown. its not the roots, i have good healthy suckers on the bottom but nothing on top. any suggestions or help would be greatly appreciated. i know this year is finished but what happened? what do i do for next year?
Czvp, pruning means trimming the plant. This is done for form, to encourage growth, to remove dead material etc. It is a basic part of grape care that a gardener would do each year. You can pursue this more in another thread if you like or maybe do a search of the forums (Search on the green bar at the top of the page) for more info about pruning. dalarry, something must have happened to kill the top growth. Are these grafted vines? I know there has been some odd weather in the East this year, but you didn't have any frost in the last few weeks there did you?
hi Eric, yes i had a hard frost may 25, but would that cause my canes to dry out and die? i had thought that my primary buds might be damaged by the frost but my secondaries would take over. am i incorrect in this assumption? is this dependant on the extent of the frost? i am growing frontenac and sabrevois and until this year handled the weather with no problem at all, although last year i did have some trouble with phyloxera in the frontenac. thank you in advance larry
I honestly don't know much about grapes, but I knew the weather had been strange. A frost can be really damaging to new fresh growth. Maybe for the canes as well, if the plants were starting to grow and they were full of sap. Grapes are vigorous plants. Maybe some of the lower shoots will even give you grapes this year.