470 FUNDAMENTALS OF FRUIT PRODUCTION 



Kind of Pruning. — Pruning the grape, like the pruning of most other 

 fruits, includes some thinning out and some heading back. The relative 

 amounts of these two types desirable in any given case depend largely on 

 the style of training employed. Invariably all the past season's shoots 

 are removed except those retained for their fruit buds or for "renewal" 

 or "replacement." This is a thinning out process. If the style of train- 

 ing calls for pruning to spurs, more of last season's shoots must be 

 retained ; consequently there can be less thinning out than if the vines are 

 pruned to canes. As the pruning should leave a fairly definite number of 

 fruit buds, the amount of heading back of the canes left after thinning 

 varies inversely with their number. Thus there is much less severe 

 heading with a two-wire Kniffin system of training than with pruning 

 back to spurs. Little need be said at this point regarding the summer 

 pruning of the grape, as the more important features are discussed in 

 Chap. XXIV. 



Methods of Training. — As already indicated, there is almost endless 

 variety in methods of training the vine. A description of each, even of 

 those that are fairly distinct, would require many pages and probably 

 would be of little real use. The fundamental objects of all these methods 

 differ little from those governing the training of other fruit-producing 

 species. Training should increase yields, improve grades or quality and 

 reduce production costs through facilitating other vineyard operations. 

 In this fruit the usual training methods, at least those employed in 

 America, have little influence on total yields. ^^ They do, however, affect 

 quality and production costs. No one method of training is necessary 

 for the production of fruit of the highest grade or quality. Thus in New 

 York, vines of the Concord have been found to mature their fruit better 

 when trained to the umbrella Kniffin system than when trained in any of 

 the other ways standard in that state. ^^ Husmann and Bearing^" report 

 that in Muscadine grapes the upright system permits the fruit to ripen 

 more evenly than does the overhead system. Only after a careful study 

 of the growing and fruiting characteristics of the different varieties in 

 various sections and soils and on different stocks can the best system 

 of training be selected and the best system for one variety may not be best 

 for another in the same vineyard. 



In general those systems of training in which the new shoots are 

 allowed to droop are much less costly than those in which they are tied 

 in horizontal or vertical positions; consequently it is only under special 

 conditions that these latter methods of training are to be recommended. 

 Along the northern limits of outdoor grape culture some of the low renewal 

 systems of training greatly facilitate the work incident to artificial 

 winter protection and are quite generally employed. Those varieties 

 whose canes bear fruit buds almost to the very base, are naturally better 

 suited to Spur renewal than those whose canes habitually form only 



