Beginning Pruning in the Vineyard

Mother Nature presented us with two days in the high 40's, Friday, February 11 and Saturday, February 12 and we took advantage of it to go to the vineyard to begin our pruning duties. We have learned some lessons from our pruning attempts in 2018 when we were close to having our vineyard fully replanted. Prior to that, pruning duties were relatively easy but after 2018, we realized that we really needed a strategy.
So on April 26, 2018, I summarized our take home lessons:

1) Cut the tendrils off of the catch wires and move the Agfast

2) Make the major cuts of last year's shoots

3) Cut tendrils and larger summer laterals off of this year's canes

4) Lay down and secure this year's canes

One thing that did not get put on the list was to remove the cuttings from the vineyard, that can in fact, constitute a huge task. Here is a tabular recap of the time we took to prune the vineyard for each season from 2018-2021.

Begin Pruning	Pre-Pruning: Cut Tendrils, Remove Agfast	Cut Tops	Final Cut	Lay Down Canes	End Pruning: Pick Up Cuttings
March 24, 2018	April 3- April 22	April 9-April 18	March 24-April 29	March 26-May 1	April 3-May 3
March 18, 2019	March 18-May 4	-	-	April 18-May 4	May 4
Feb. 1, 2020	February 1-March 6	March 14-April 4	March 28-April 23	March 31-April 25	April 25
March 3, 2021	March 3- April 18	March 17-April 19	March 12-May 3	March 30-May 3	May 13
Feb. 11, 2022	February 11-

In 2019 we tried to do all of the pre-pruning tasks as well as the final pruning in one go, contrary to what we learned from pruning in 2018. In 2019, we took out the vineyard cuttings on tarps and that seemed to help the overall task. Since last year, when we had all 36 of our vineyard rows populated with vines, each task took much longer.
For example, on Thursday and Friday, my husband and I split the tasks of removing the Agfast and cutting the tendrils. Removing the Agfast makes cutting the tendrils easier, so that task is the first task that needs to be done. Cutting the tendrils may take up to 2 hours per row. We have 3 rows with Agfast and tendrils removed and 2 rows with Agfast removed. The next time that we are in the vineyard, my husband will begin cutting the tops of last year's fruiting canes.
A few other changes that we think will facilitate the process of pruning: (1) we will leave the netting where it is and (2) we will leave the cut canes where it is until we can remove them by bringing our trailer into the vineyard.