Pruning Progress

My husband is making great progress in pruning our 36 rows of vines. This year, he is doing two tasks simultaneously. He is trimming the tops of the canes and then doing the final pruning. As a contrast, last year, he went through the entire vineyard pruning the tops of last year's canes and then came though the vineyard to do the final pruning consequently, final pruning did not begin until April 11th in the Chardonnay. Today, my husband is pruning in our Chenin Blanc and has already finished 15 rows of pruning!

The above photos shows the "Before" and "After" of pruning. In the "After" photo the cuttings have been neatly piled by each line post. It took a while to figure this out. In the past, we left the cuttings in the alleys so that we could come back with a tarp ( ← check out this link) to gather it up and take it out of the vineyard, but since last year, we have used a sled, loaned to us by our hunter to remove the cuttings. This worked, but this year we have a better way of removing the cuttings. When it comes to that time, I will blog about it.