Ever since my great uncle died 15 or so years ago, these grape vines haven't gotten any attention. Not sure even what variety they are. The grapes are small and the pulp is like chewing gum as you can chew and chew and doesn't really break down. Probably could do aggressive pruning but at this point I wonder if it wouldn't kill em.

you might be amazed how reziliant grapes can be

I would prune them back to 3 feet from the vertical stem coming from the ground and they will probably explode with growth , you may not get so much for fruit this year but next year will probably be impressive

Greencountypete is right on. You'll lose this year's crop, but have a really good one next year. Pruning will make the grapes larger and sweeter.

You can make cuttings out of last years growth with 3 buds, stick 2 buds in dirt and leave 1 bud out and, keep them moist and make hundreds of new grapevines if you want to too.

Keith

Well the crop as it has been years has been garbage so loosing a year or two won't matter.

To bad you can't graft grapes and muscadines as I have a bunch of sticks from pruning that I could of tried to graft em. id stick some if those in a dirt nearby to see if they'd grow for another experiment.

Definitely! Look up Ison's Nursery muscadine pruning videos on YouTube. Good stuff!

Muscadines are supposed to be hard to root from dormant cuttings, but I would try it anyway, since you have the material. It costs virtually nothing to try.

Please let us know how the muscadines do. Last Spring, they were selling muscadine vines at the Lowes in Marysville, Ohio. What I have read, says we are pretty much on the edge of where muscadines can be grown and that they will die to the ground some years.

I have thought about trying some muscadines myself. I like their large size and heavy yields.

Keith

We don't generally get that cold in the winter here. My growing zone according to the USDA map is the same as Kentucky
Did a have a bad winter a few years ago that caused a lot of roses to die back to the ground.

After trimming them , weed control and fertilizer. I can't stress weed control under the trellis enough. I live in a vineyard and have worked farming Concord Niagara and catabawa grapes since I was a child. If you need to replace vines make a "layer" from a mother plant next to itt. This way the buried part grows roots and the mother plant also feeds it. Cut mother plant away in 3 to 4 years. Cuttings will take about 3 to 4 years to produce grapes while a layer will produce the first year.

Greencountypete has it. A three foot runner on either side of the main trunk running along the wires. Looks like six total for your set up. Make sure your posts are set solid, replace if necessary, tighten up the wires, and rip out all the trimmed brush and watch'em grow. I would use twine to tie up the runners. Those vines just might surprise you come fall. If you lose one just let a bottom runner from an adjacent plant go and not trim it. When it gets long enough dig a hole where the next one should be, gently bend it into the hole and bury it so the tip end reaches two wires and tie it off. After a couple years cut it away from the parent plant and start training it.

I have a fair amount of experience in a vineyard. In high school I worked for a couple years for one of my teachers on his 50 or so acres. And then several years for my brother. He had a couple different vineyards totaling 200 acres or so. I never got into the trimming part of it. Pulling brush off the wires was just plain old heavy bull work. Setting posts was fun, I used an eighteen pound mall standing on the back of a trailer which only stopped to put in a new post. Picking was just plain monotonous. My brother on the other hand used a tractor with a hydraulic post pounder. About the time I got married my brother switched from grapes to cut flowers.

Turtledale, my teachers vineyard was between Sheridan and Silver Creek and my brother was between Westfield and Ripley right on Rte 20.

You couldn't kill them if you tried. A close friend used to manage a vineyard. He has said that you have to cut grapes enough to scare them to get them to make good fruit. They also grow vines like crazy. I bet I remove 70% of the plant every year.

Ya look on youtube to see how to prune them, my first one is over 25 years old, about 35' long, I didn't prune it right

grandma used fabric scraps to tie them up to the boards, her grapes were on 1x6 boards nailed to the up right posts along the driveway on the south side of the house.

my Concords I don't ever seem to need to tie they hold the wires fine then run across my chain link fence

Here's a funny story concerning grape pruning: First off, I know what i'm doing. Second, I had a friend with a farm near ours but he didn't have a clue how to prune grapes. His six vines were planted by his dad back in the 30's or 40's. Never pruned since then. Fruit was too numerous, small and bitter. But still he made a little juice and jelly every year.

Over his annual objections, I finally prevailed in getting him to agree to my pruning them. I took out 90% of the plants. The next year there was zero grapes, but lots of new healthy vines that were going to be able to produce. Well, Lewis wouldn't allow me to prune this new healthy growth because the year before i pruned and he didn't get anything. All the new healthy growth produced a bumper crop of mediocre grapes that year. Which proved to him that NOT pruning is better for grapes. LOL!!!! He could have had consistent crops of good grapes from there on out if they kept getting pruned yearly.

If the fruit is of very poor quality- give the vines a really big hair cut as has been stated and graft some varieties that are common to your area and are better grapes for whatever products you want to make or use.

Bryce

i was always told to prune in the winter or they will bleed to death???

This is true. I do mine before the end of February. Cut a vine this time of year, water/ sap will run out of the vine.

First, wine grapes are not eating grapes. I have about two acres of grapes, and just finished pruning. Yes the vines are bleeding, but they will quit, and grow fine. An unkept grape is basically a weed! If you don't keep your weed under control, they grow where they want, so pruning is essential. If you have never pruned before, you will be amazed, and prolly to get a good job, find someone that works with grapes, and ask if they wouuld help steer you , because most people that have never pruned grapes will not do them justice the first time they try!

You need a trunk, and two laterals, or as they arre called cordons, with spurs growing off the cordons. Basically you prune everything off down to the things I've listed, to the spurs with two buds. That's it, depending on the trellis configuration that is there or that you choose. As a side note, a lot of the french american hybrids that have been developed need to be pruned back once or twice a growing season to be kept managable. If you have any questions, just holler!

I'm pretty sure these arent wine grapes. I'm told there used to be a whole vineyard going down the hill and these are probably the last remnant of it. That was probably at least 50 years ago.