Vintage 2024: March Pruning

There is no excuse now since we have been having very warm weather this March. Beginning March 3, we have been out in the vineyard pruning. For us, pruning entails cutting the wire that holds down last year's fruiting cane, removing all of the black ties we used to hold the shoots upright, pruning the tops of last year's shoots and most importantly, selecting this year's fruiting canes. As we do this, we are checking to see how the buds look. So far, the buds look dormant, which for now is a very good thing.
It's a good time for me to refresh myself regarding grape vine phenology.

• One of the very best papers, available online is Ed Hellman's Grapevine Structure and Function
• A chart that I often refer to is this: Modified Eichhorn-Lorenz Chart

At the moment, the vineyard is in the dormant bud stage, pretty much stage 1, the winter bud stage:

Here is what the vineyard is looking like now:

We leave at least 2 canes from last year to be this year's fruiting canes. All of the cuttings are piled at the lineposts. This makes gathering the cuttings "easy". Last year, we purchased an expedition sled and used it in the vineyard to remove the cuttings.
This year we hope to implement another idea which should save us a lot of time during the growing season. We almost never have time to bring the netting into the lowest position on the linepost to prevent the summer tendrils from twining into the net. This spring however, we hope to bring all of the nets to the lowest possible position on the linepost to avoid the tendril twining situation. We are testing out a few ideas that we have and when we implement it, I will blog about it. Until then, it's more pruning for us!