How to Prune Muscadines

Proper grape pruning is severe, and new growers may feel concerned they're cutting off far too much vine. Muscadine grapevines require one-year-old growth to bear new fruiting wood, but the vines don't need older growth. A proper pruning job eliminates the bulk so the vine can grow strong. Muscadine grapevines produce a large amount of growth each year, so they require annual pruning to prevent a mess from developing. Prune each year in the late winter or early spring, once heavy frosts have passed.

Hand pruners

Instructions

- 1
  Look over the vine before you begin, to identify dead, diseased, or damaged tissue that needs to be removed. Damaged or diseased vine tissue may be discolored, swollen, or markedly different in appearance from healthy tissue. Dead tissue will feel brittle.
- 2
  Cut off all dead and damaged tissue, and discard it in your trash. Don't compost it, because it could spread disease to other plants.
- 3
  Thin out the shoots so there is space between them. Make sure no spurs touch, or the vine will grow tangled.
- 4
  Cut back old growth severely on your muscadine grapevine, leaving only two or three buds on each shoot.

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