6 BULLETIN 349, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



the vines (PI. II, fig. 2). This enables the growers to plow and. 

 cultivate lengthwise and crosswise. Of late years, since the proper 

 method of pruning Sultanina has become better known, there is a 

 tendency toward trellising. The vineyards are plowed twice an- 

 nually. In the first plowing the soil is thrown away from, the vines 

 (PI. I, fig. 3), and in the second it is thrown up to them again 

 (PL I, fig. 1). Frequent cultivations are given early in the season, 

 all culture being abandoned after the spring rains are over. 



Crops can be grown without irrigation, but it has been practiced 

 largely because it increases the size of the fruit and therefore also 

 increases the yield. Trouble has been experienced in some localities 

 on account of the lands becoming waterlogged from irrigation. 



PRUNING METHODS IN RAISIN VINEYARDS. 



Three methods of pruning are practiced with raisin varieties in 



this country. These are spur, cane, and spurring laterals on canes, 



the methods used differing with the varieties. 



M JJ All grape-pruning systems have, however, the one 



\HL'/ /$ underlying principle that the grape usually bears 



its fruit on shoots from wood of the previous 



year's growth. The pruning should, therefore, be 



such as to renew the wood at a given point from 



year to year, thereby regulating its production and 



keeping the plant thoroughly shaped and under 



constant control. 1 



THE SPUR, STOOL, OR SHORT PRUNING SYSTEM. 



The simplest and cheapest method and the one 

 extensively used in California with the stockier 

 fig. i.— a grapevine varieties of Vinifera grapes is the spur system, 



pruned to spurs. ,. . , , , , 



otherwise known as the stool or short pruning 

 system. By this method the body of the vine is grown to the desired 

 height and shoots are permitted to grow from only the two uppermost 

 buds. The two resulting canes are cut back in the winter to spurs of 

 two eyes each. The following year these spurs are allowed to produce 

 growth. The resulting canes are again cut back to spurs and all of 

 them allowed to remain if the vine is strong enough. Thus the vine 

 under ordinary conditions at the beginning of the fifth year consists 

 of a trunk from which spring four or five arms, on each of which a 

 cane has been cut back to a spur (fig. 1 and PI. II, fig. 3). When the 

 vine is pruned the following winter all, or nearly all, the outer 

 canes that have grown from the spurs are entirely removed. The 



1 For full information on the pruning and training of vines, see Farmers' Bulletin No. 

 471, entitled " Grape Propagation, Pruning, and Training." 



