PRUNING YOUNG VINES

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 672, 25 May 1929, Page 28

PRUNING YOUNG VINES

The pruning of young vines needs great care. They make very long growths each year, make very long growths each year, anything up to 15ft or more, and this fact often tempts inexperienced gardeners to leave such fine shoots unsliortened, so that they may cover the available space in record time. This is altogether wrong. The treatment that a young vine needs is as follows: After planting the one-year-old vine, cut it hack to two plump buds at the base, this to encourage strong rooting and a vigorous, sturdy growth. Ti-ain up the stronger of the two resulting shoots that grow in spring to form the main rod. At the next pruning, after leaf fall, cut back this long cane to 4ft from the base, or if it is weakly, to about two feet.

The side-slioots that develop in the next summer may bear a bunch or t ’o of grapes. At the next winter pruning, shorten the leading growth on the rod so that only about 3ft of the previous summer’s growth is left and cut all the side-shoots back to ’two bottom buds, these forming the first of the permanent spurs only allow the well-placed side-shoots to develop into spurs—that is, those alternatively positioned at equal distances along the sides of the rod. In subsequent years cut: back the leading sho<3t of the main rod to within 2ft or so of where it started to grow in the spring and shorten the side-shoots to two bottom buds as before described. Later, when the rod reaches the top of the house, the new growth, each year, must be cut back hard, according to the available space for extension.