Grape Spring Pruning 2009

From our Spring 2009 Newsletter
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Visit our Grape Project to see how grapes are pruned & watch them grow from Spring to Fall.

Spring pruning was slightly different than last year. We used a system of "Hedge Pruning" using a hedger and pruning all the shoots on the top wire fruiting area to about a 2 foot square box.

This was followed up with a little hand pruning. We had a crew of two youths working on this the month preceeding our normal spring break pruning time. About half the vineyard was pruned with this system.

We finished most of the rest of the vineyard during April. A few rows of concord in the back were left for later to try to retard damage from any late springs frosts. This worked to our benefit as we did have a frost on May 18 and because more buds were left on wlith this pruning method the damage was limited.

The winter of 2008-2009 was very cold (2nd year in a row) (so much for the Global Warming Alarmists) and some vines were damaged over the winter such as Suffolk Red.

Below are a few pictures of our crew this year.
Click on any picture to enlarge it!