Pruning Essentials

I can across another timely article in our Wine Business Monthly journal. It's called Site-specific Pruning Simplified written by Mark Greenspan. Here are some pruning rules mentioned in that article.
No Skinny Stuff

• Don't leave skinny wood
• Dormant buds and early-emerging shoots rely on stored carbohydrate in the woody tissues nearby until leaves become functional and begin photosynthesis
• Leaving skinny wood starves the buds and young shoots for energy when they need it most
• In cane-pruned vines, skinny wood slows bud emergence, and sometimes buds don’t burst at all
• Weak wood will leave weak shoots and canes that will be skinny the following year
• Excessive buds retained at pruning will weaken the vine over time and could potentially create ancillary problems, such as greater disease susceptibility
• Vines that have been overtaxed by overly generous pruning (i.e., leaving more buds than they should have) continue to be weak
• Prune to wood that is no less than 1 centimeter in diameter (three-eighths of an inch)
• Leaving thicker, stronger wood will produce more uniform and stronger shoots and canes
• Thick canes with long internodes and that are possibly also flattened/oval-shaped, rather than round in cross-section, are often poor choices for cane-pruning
• Eight to 10 buds per cane will usually do; any more can lead to uneven budbreak

Timing

• Budbreak timing will be affected by the timing of pruning
• Susceptibility to spring frosts is an important consideration as is susceptibility to poor weather during bloom and fruit set
• Early pruning is really only beneficial if fruit ripening is difficult in a particular situation; otherwise later is better

Finer Aspects of Pruning

• Avoid large flush cuts to older wood because they will die back and create zones of desiccation that will interfere with the vascular system of the trunk or cordon

Last year, we applied the Simonit & Sirch Pruning Techniques to our vineyard and we think we achieved some good results. Please check out that link if you are interested in that technique. Photos of pruned vines come from our friend in the UK, Cameron Roucher, the vineyard manager at Rathfinney.
References:
1. Mark Greenspan, Site-specific Pruning Simplified, Wine Business Monthly, January 2020.