Grape Vine Care

One of the oldest cultivated plants, growing grapevines is the favorite hobby of home gardeners. The grapes which you get after the cultivation can be eaten fresh as well as processed into jam, jelly, juice, or wine. There are two methods of growing a grape vine - four-cane Kniffin method and six-cane Kniffin method. Some of the basic requirements of growing grape vine are a good planting site, hardy varieties and proper culture. However, taking proper care of the grape vine is very necessary to ensure a good harvest every season. In the following lines, we have provided information on how to care for a grape vine.

How to Care for a Grape Vine

The first step towards taking care of the grape vine would be to know what pattern your grape vine is based on. There are two methods of growing grapevine - the four-cane Kniffin system and the six-cane Kniffin system.
Pruning grapevine is very important and needs to be done with care. The best time to prune the grape vine is during late winter or early spring, when the vine is dormant. Pruning helps trim down vine clusters, thus enabling growth of quality grapes.
Another benefit of pruning is that the trimmed material allows you to know how many buds to keep for the next growing season. It also shows how fast the grapevine grows.
An important decision to keep in mind while pruning the grape vine is how much to prune. This would be entirely dependent on how many branches it is required to keep. If your grape vine supports four-cane system, you need to prune down to four canes and in case of six-cane system; pruning down to six canes will be required. For easy identification the next time, you can tie a ribbon to the branches pruned.
Lastly, it is also very important to decide the number of buds you want to keep per cane. Adhere to a simple formula - for the first pound of pruned material, you can keep 30 buds. For each extra pound of pruned material, add an additional 10 buds.

How to Cite

Related Articles

See also

More in 'Home & Living'