Need Help with Grape Vines

A few years back i went crazy and planted all kinds of trees and fruit all over my property. Things went well for awhile then turned south. I was an amateur, didnt do enough research on each item i was planting and also got alot of bad advice. So the next go around i said i would take it slow and make sure i have an idea what im doing. My grape vines were growing like crazy, i just have a simple question:

I had built a trelis using 2 (4x4x8) which were about 6 feet above ground and i strung wire between them. The Grape vines were out of control. My question is what do I  do when the vines reach the height of the trelis? flop them over and let them hang? twine them back down the trelis? trim them? I have no clue and havent seen any info online.

Thanks in advance for the help!

When we grew grapes we never trimmed them.

I am not sure there are any set rules as to whether to "flop them over and let them hang? twine them back down the trelis? trim them?"

These might help:

https://permies.com/t/142947/Grapes#1119093

https://permies.com/t/109696/Growing-Grapes-Naturally

Troy Docimo wrote:A few years back i went crazy and planted all kinds of trees and fruit all over my property. Things went well for awhile then turned south. I was an amateur, didnt do enough research on each item i was planting and also got alot of bad advice. So the next go around i said i would take it slow and make sure i have an idea what im doing. My grape vines were growing like crazy, i just have a simple question:

I had built a trelis using 2 (4x4x8) which were about 6 feet above ground and i strung wire between them. The Grape vines were out of control. My question is what do I  do when the vines reach the height of the trelis? flop them over and let them hang? twine them back down the trelis? trim them? I have no clue and havent seen any info online.

Thanks in advance for the help!

There is tons  of information out there on pruning grapes but it can be difficult to follow. As simple as I can explain it is to prune hard every year late winter. Attempt to train to one main leader (from the ground to your top wire).  I think it's better to have two wires. Let one arm run in both directions along each wire.

Grapes are typically trained as a single trunk to the fruiting wire. From there, you either use cane pruning (where you leave a long shoot of the previous seasons growth) or cordon (also called spur pruning, where you build lateral limbs with short stubs of last seasons growth)



All grapes fruit on new wood that grows from the buds on last seasons canes. This means that you need to remove most of last seasons growth or the whole plant quickly turns into a dense and overgrown mess. It is important to establish "form" so that the vine can be trained to the trellis in basically the same way year after year.

Cane pruning and spur pruning have various tradeoffs, depending on the variety and its characteristics. Cane pruning is better for grapes with smaller clusters and less vigor, and spur pruning is generally used on larger-clustered more vigorous varieties.

The european grapes tend to have a more upright growth habit, so they are often pruned with low trunks, and the new growth is tied in place as it grows upwards during the spring. This is often called vertical shoot position or VSP. Some american varieties (like concords, I want to say, although I have never grown them) tend to take on a more trailing form, and are sometimes trained along a high wire and allowed to drape down like a curtain. For a small number of vines, any of these systems will work. Upright types can be grown on a high-wire trellis; they simply flop over once they get to a certain size. High winds can be a problem with this method, but where practical, it does save a lot of labor in the early season.

The nice thing with grapes is that they are tough. It takes a lot to kill them. You can cut an established vine to the ground, and completely retrain it and have it start producing again within a couple of years. They are also very easy to propagate from cuttings. You should strive to keep big pruning cuts to a minimum. If you lop off a limb that is over an inch thick, it will take it a long time to heal, and the vine can get fungal infections that will eventually kill it.

Thank you for your replies, but i am still interested in opinions, maybe i wasnt clear. The vines grow so fast it isnt a matter of pruning yearly, they reach the end of my trellis quickly, now what? cut them? hang them over? twine them back down? They grew fast....

I think it's entirely up to you Troy.

If you want to get better quality fruit then the advice is to trim back side shoots just after the flowers. This gives more light and plant energy into ripening those fruit. If you are not bothered about that, then do what is least trouble or seems aesthetically most pleasing to you. The vine won't mind!

Maybe you need a trellis extension?

like someone said, there are two "main" types of pruning.  Grape variety would get better answers....
We spur prune.  
 When the main vine or trunk reaches that wire at 6 ft, cut it off there.  (as well as any other vines growing from trunk).  
then let 2 top buds grow, one each way down top wire until they reach the desired length. (dependent on variety).
Prune off all side branches of the vines on the wire at 8 inches long or so until both arms reach desired length.
Every year after that prune back the spurs to the 2nd or 3rd bud....

Some varieties are better with cane pruning so an internet search might help you.

So basically, cut off your vine at the wire, remove all growth between the soil and the wire.

Troy, you are not alone! All these clean line drawings and the excellent Permies advice cannot begin to translate to the mess of vines that refuse to cover my 4x4x8’ tall arbor. I just wanted some long vines to create some shade and a few grape clusters for munching. I feel like I'm in some really complicated hell realm with these grape plants and their vines are several meters long in every direction.
Today I attempted to tackle the job. After much confusing and conflicting research, I am following this short guide from Washington State University:
https://extension.wsu.edu/maritimefruit/grape-research/pruning-grapes-in-home-gardens-some-basic-guidelines/
The instructions for training vines to get plenty of grapes are in this hand-out. The instructions encourage boldly cutting back 90% of last year's growth since grapes only develop on 1 year old vines. In my case, I'm following the basic instructions for arbors, which involves cutting off half of the vines (way less scary than 90%). So far, I’ve cut off about 50% and intend to clip the ends of the latest canes to 3-5 buds.
The vines are now tied up the 8’ high posts with old ripped up T-shirt strips. The tops are draped over the top of the arbor. Wild yes, but it looks so much cleaner! I am trying to secure the healthiest and youngest looking vines growing from the 1 meter trunk up the arbor posts and secure them over the 8' arbor for shade to develop. If I get a few bunches of grapes, I'll be ecstatic.
My neighbor who has a vineyard says to weave and tuck the long ends and non-productive shoots back into the arbor for shade. He thins the non-productive shoots in his production vineyard to put the energy toward the grape harvest.
Good luck with your project Troy. Let's hope grape pruning and training gets easier!

Troy Docimo wrote:Thank you for your replies, but i am still interested in opinions, maybe i wasn't clear. The vines grow so fast it isn't a matter of pruning yearly, they reach the end of my trellis quickly, now what? cut them? hang them over? twine them back down? They grew fast....

 As suggested pruning vies back to where they have flowered has been most productive for me. 1. they seem to get better pollination 2. they seem to ripen better 3. The small birds do not peck the exposed clusters as much as the ones hidden deep in the vines.  After harvest cut back to one vine wrapped around the horizontal wires. One old vine on each wire works best with all the last years growth cut back to one or two buds which will hang down a fruiting vine the next summer.  So when you want to enjoy the shade you trim off the extra vine hanging down then you cut above the fruit clusters as you harvest, therefore most of the pruning becomes part of your use instead of a separate chore.  You can keep the vine cut off at the end of the trellis or if it is vigorous enough and you have room extend the trellis or trin the tip down to the ground where it will root if you do not have a vine on that end.  By periodic tip rooting a vine can extend forever which is what happened on my farm when they were not managed.

Thank you all very much for all your time and effort i really appreciate it. I have alot to consider now but am looking forward to getting back into it! Thanks again