PRUNING THREE-YEAR-OLD VINES 31 1 



temporarily and gives the shoot time to strengthen its tissues before 

 its length gives too much leverage to the wind. This pinching 

 usually has to be repeated at least once. 



Pinching may be replaced by topping a few weeks later, but the 

 latter is somewhat weakening to the vine. 



In all summer pruning that is, the removal of green shoots and 

 leaves of young vines, two things should be kept in mind: First 

 that all summer pruning is weakening; second that the object of 

 summer pruning of young vines is to direct the growth as much as 

 possible into those parts which are to become permanent portions of 

 the mature vine. The weakening effect is negligible if the shoots or 

 tips are removed when they are very small, but may be very serious 

 if large shoots are removed or heavily topped. When a large shoot 

 covered with leaves is removed it is a total loss to the vine. When 

 a small shoot is removed the food materials which would have gone 

 into that shoot are diverted to the shoots that remain, and the vigor 

 and size of the latter are increased. 



THIRD YEAR 



Winter Pruning. After the leaves have fallen at the end of the 

 third summer every vine should have a well-formed, straight stem 

 with two, three, or more canes growing from the upper part, and 

 the formation of the "head" or crown should commence. Any vines 

 which have not been brought to this condition must be pruned like 

 two or one-year-old vines, as the case may be. 



If the work up to this point has been well done, the formation of 

 the head is a simple matter. It consists in leaving two, three, or 

 four spurs, arranged as symmetrically as possible near the top of 

 the vine. The stronger the vine, as evidenced by the number, length, 

 and thickness of the canes, the larger the number of spurs and buds 

 that should be left. 



A spur consists of the basal portion of a cane, and normally of 

 two full internodes. This leaves two buds besides the base bud. 

 The number of buds to leave on a spur depends on the strength or 

 thickness of the cane from which the spur is made. A thin, or weak, 

 cane should be cut back to one bud or even to the base bud. A 

 strong cane, on the other hand, should be left with three buds 

 besides the base bud. 



The pruning of each vine requires judgment, and it is impossible 

 to give an inflexible rule to follow. The ideal of a perfect vine 

 should be kept in mind and each vine pruned as nearly in accord- 

 ance with this ideal as circumstances permit. Fig. 3 represents 

 nearly perfect three-year-old vines consisting of two or three sym- 

 metrically placed spurs of two buds each near the top of the stem. 



Sometimes it is necessary to leave a spur lower down (see Fig. 3, 

 b). This spur will be removed the following year after it has pro- 

 duced two or three bunches of grapes. Sometimes a vine may be 

 very vigorous but have only two canes properly placed for making 

 spurs. In this case the spurs should be left longer three buds and 

 even in extreme cases four buds long. 



