Gardening and Trimming Grapevines

Muscadines and Bunching Grapes

• Muscadines and bunching grapes can be treated similarly in the garden and both will produce grapes. But to be at their best, muscadines should be trained differently. When in fruit, muscadines and bunching grapes are easy to tell apart. Bunching grapes form the familiar bunched fruit that is seen in grocery stores, but the fruit of muscadines develops further apart so the fruit appears more like berries scattered across the vines. If in doubt, treat all grapes like bunching grapes -- your muscadines can be correctly trained when they reveal themselves in the spring.

Trellis Systems

• Grapes are trained to trellises to maximize the amount of sunlight that reaches their leaves, as well as to support the weight of the bounty of fruit they will produce as mature vines. Bunching grapes are often trained to cordon trellises in home gardens. Cordons are posts set in the ground with two or three wires strung tightly between them at different heights to allow the grape vine to climb. Muscadines, ideally, are trained to an X-shaped trellis with four outer posts and a central post. Wires are stretched tightly from the central post to the four outer posts in an X-shape. Muscadines can be grown on a traditional cordon trellis but will produce more grapes on an X-shaped trellis because it allows for more lateral vine growth.

Trimming Bunching Grapes

• Trim older grape vines during the winter when they are dormant to avoid excessive damage and bleeding. Generally, grape vines are trimmed based on their age, but if that is unknown, you will have to make some guesses as to how to best proceed. A vine will not normally produce many or any grapes until it is at least three years old, so if your vine produced a good number of grapes, treat it as a mature vine. Grapes fruit on new wood produced from the previous year's spurs. Leave the main part of the fruiting cane on the cordon but trim all the lateral growth away. Remove all but the best two spurs that arise from the base of the vine and train those up to the trellis for production in the year to come. Remove the old fruiting canes from the laterals in the following year in favor of the growth from the new spurs.

Trimming Muscadines

• Mature muscadines should also be pruned only in the winter, though it is acceptable to trim them throughout the year if they grow aggressively. As with bunching grapes, muscadines should be kept to one or two good fruiting spurs for each year's production. However, if a muscadine is trained to an X-shaped trellis, there should be one or two spurs per trellis section. If spurs become too thick to prune out individuals, remove the whole clump and wait for new spurs to emerge. Cut all excess lateral growth from the tops of the trellis and remove anything beyond eight new spurs from the trunk of the vine. Watch muscadines throughout the year because they can self-girdle when growth becomes excessive. Trim any growth that threatens to wrap around the plant immediately.