Looking for info on pruning 20 yar old overgrown concord grapes. Can I really cut the many very thick and very long vines down to just a few and start the trellising process anew, or will that kill the plant entirely? The main trunks are from 2 to 6 inches across, and some of the "cordones" are twenty feet long. The vines produce some grapes and lots of foliage. I would like to manage them/renew them and produce a larger yield.
Is there an answer? I also have a vry old, overgrown vine that I want to re-train. Is there help for us?
2-6 inches across is quite large I find. I moved into a home with 40 year old single vine left on arbor that fell down, was exceedingly long and growing up a close tree20-24 feet. I hacked it back till it screamed for mercy! The very first year after that I trained it on the re-built arbor and that single vine completely covered the arbor, and supported itself up to three feet past the arbor edges and has hanging on it about 17 pounds of fruit, there was more, but japanese beetles got at it one night, and she lost a few too many leaves. My advice HACK AWAY!!! leave 4 feet of main trunk, and only one or two trailer stalks... It should be hacked to only one stalk, or one or two trailer stalks, the vine should resemble a letter "T", or the letter "I" or the number "7" (ish)... good luck.
There is an answer! The best thing to remember about pruning grapes is: If it isn't producing enough fruit, prune it. If it looks like you pruned too much, you didn't. Grapes are very forgiving; too much cut this year? Fix it next year! I accidentally cut a concord grape vine that was estimated to be about 30 years old with the deck on my lawnmower. The next year, we could barely handle all of the fruit!
I too "inherited" an overgrown grape vine which I have since discovered is two separate plants. I have decided that I would like to train them and researched some of the methods. I found that none of the methods really apply to my situation. One vine is a bulbous stump with vines sprouting out of it from all directions. The other trunk is about six feet tall and wraping itself around the stair on my deck. The vines are concentrated in the top two feet of the trunk. I would like to get back to a two-wire trellis system. I do not know how to deal with the trunk. Can it be cut back without sacrificing a harvest? Last fall it was fairly productive (at least we thought until I read what some others have done). From what I read, the bulbos stum can be brought up with some staking.
