How to Prune Overgrown Muscadine Grapevines

Muscadine grapes, which are indigenous to the southeastern United States, grow on hardy vines that can live for a number of years. Because of their longevity, vines are often grown on durable wire frames or trellises. The basic structure of the cultivated vine is a trunk, two to four cordons (permanent arms) attached to the wire or trellis, and spurs (new shoots) that produce the fruit. The fruiting spurs arise only from buds set on the previous year’s growth. While failure to prune annually can lead to overgrowth, over time, annual pruning also can produce fruitless, unmanageable multibranch spur clusters.

Things You'll Need

• Loppers
• Garden clippers

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Instructions

1. • 1

     Remove a part of all spur clusters or every other spur cluster with loppers and garden clippers when a single cluster has turned into a multibranched cluster. Over time, new spurs will replace the removed ones, but such heavy pruning will lessen grape production the next season. As an alternative, you can heavily prune one cordon one year and the other cordon the next year to keep grape production steady.

   • 2

     Remove tendrils wrapped around the cordons with clippers. Tendrils can kill spurs and cordons.

   • 3

     Remove dead and diseased growth from the main truck of the vine.

   • 4

     Cut one to two cordons off each year when the vine has overgrown and developed many cordons until the vine is back to its proper structure.