How to Prune & Cut a Grapevine

Proper pruning of a grapevine is vital to ensure that you get the most growth and grape yield in the upcoming season. This process should be done just before Spring, ideally between January and the first of March. Your grapes are in the dormant phase of their growth pattern at this point, and you want to prune just before they become active again so that the newly cut areas will have maximum exposure to light and nutrients. There are two methods of pruning grapevines, the cane prune or the spur prune.

Gardening shears

Instructions

- 1
  Decide if you want to cane prune or spur prune. Each technique is slightly different, but the results are the same. Use your shears to make all your cuts at a slight downward angle regardless of the method you choose. Healthy grapevines ensure that you will have grape growth throughout the active growth period of the season.
- 2
  Cane prune by selecting a plant and identifying 2 to 4 canes that have previously fruited. Trim them back to leave approximately 15 buds on each cane. Depending upon the variety of grapes you are growing, you're going to end up leaving a different number of buds per grape plant. For table grapes, this number is anywhere from 40 to 80. For wine grapes, this number is 20 to 30 buds per plant.
- 3
  Spur prune by pruning with care along the main areas of cane growth on the plant. You will want to leave 2 to 3 growth spurs approximately 4 to 6 inches apart. This will leave you with 20 to 80 growth buds per grape plant, depending upon which type of grape you're growing. You can then prune off the rest of the growth from last season.

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