Pruning Our Concord Grape Vine

Too much vegetative growth and lower grape yield
can be the result of not pruning your grape vine enough.
Photo by Brad Sylvester, copyright 2011. Do not copy.

This year our Concord Grape vine, now about 3 years old, did really well. It produced 7 pounds of grapes that we harvested, plus those eaten by the chipmunks. Those grapes, in turn, yielded just about 7 liters of wine which is aging peacefully on a shelf. It will sit for at least a year before we open the first bottle and see how we've done with the first batch from our own grapes.

The knock on Concord grape wine is that it tends to be highly acidic and can be a bit harsh on the palate. There are steps that can be taken to minimize this or correct it entirely, but we made a very basic batch without taking any of those steps this year. I'll taste it next year just before preparing next season's batch and decide then whether to make alterations to the basic approach we took this year.

Meanwhile, it is the end of the season and although it has been unseasonably warm (the forsythia is blooming again for the second time since September), the growing season is over and it is time to prune the grape vine. This should only be done once it drops its leaves and is definitely shut down for the winter.

Grape vines should be pruned very heavily. I am training mine to weave in and around the spindles of our back deck railing so that it will look as though we have a living green railing next year and beyond, so I'll leave a little more of the vine structure this year for shaping.

For a really good guide to pruning grapes, check out this page from Ohio State University's Extension Service.

Most people tend to either neglect pruning their grape vines altogether or prune far too lightly. The result of under pruning is that the grape vine has so many branches and leaves that it has to spend too much energy building and maintaining that vegetative growth that the yield of fruit suffers. Let's face it, the main point of having a grape vine is to produce grapes, so pruning for maximum fruit yield should be an important part of your pre-winter grape vine maintenance.

One way to determine if your pruning regimen is working is to weigh your grapes each year. If your total harvest starts dropping and there was no unusual cause that you can identify (very bad weather, disease, etc.), then you may want to revisit the way you're pruning the vine.

Next spring we are planning to add another variety of grape vine as well. We are looking for a good hardy vine and will probably look at those grape varieties that grow well in upstate New York as the winter's are similar there. We'd like to get a sweeter grape that is better for eating or producing a more palatable sweet wine. I'll keep you informed as we make the decision on which variety we get. Whichever it is, we'll expect very few grapes the first year after planting as the plant concentrates on establishing itself rather than fruiting.

---------

Read my blog entry on the Grape Tumid Gallmaker, an insect that creates unusual growths on the vine tendrils or grape stems.