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Pruning muscadines and grapes

February is when the garden season really starts for shrubs, trees, and vines. It’s a great time for planting, and the bigger the plant, the more helpful it is to plant it early so it can establish itself before the heat of summer. We have planting instructions on the website and planting videos if you need a refresher.

February is also the earliest time to be thinking about pruning most fruit trees and grape vines. I only do light corrective pruning on trees and shrubs this time of year because you’re cutting off potentially fruiting wood. I do heavier pruning in the summer. The time to prune is just after the hard freezes (temps below 20 degrees F) are over and before the sap starts to rise. In the Piedmont this could be near the beginning of the month; here it’s usually mid-February.

What do you mean by “light corrective pruning”?

This is the minimal pruning necessary for trees and shrubs to establish their structure. In addition to removing dead, damaged, or diseased wood, young trees often need pruning so they don’t get too leggy, and older shrubs need some of their older branches retired in favor of newer, more vigorous branches. You can read a more complete explanation in my pruning article from last year’s newsletter and see how to prune young trees and shrubs in our videos.

What about muscadines?

With muscadines I wait just a little later for pruning – late February or early March around here. That’s a couple weeks after the time for pruning the fruit trees. The basic way to prune muscadines is down to four buds from the previous year’s growth. Those four buds will produce the flowers for this year’s fruit.  Since all grapes bear on the previous seasons growth,  this late winter pruning must be done on an annual basis to keep your grapes producing well.

What about a new muscadine? How do I get it started growing on a trellis?

With a new plant, you’ll need two or three years for it to grow its permanent architecture. The first year keep the vine growing up a stake until it’s at least 18” higher than the trellis wire.  For muscadines on trellis a single wire 4 ½ feet above ground level is recommended.  Prune off the vine just below the wire so the plant will start growing lateral branches. Start training one lateral branch in each direction along the wire for 10 feet. Depending on when you plant and start training, getting this far could take a couple years. In following years, prune off any side branches growing on the trunk, and then prune all of the branches that grew off the lateral branches to four buds annually in late winter.

What about a muscadine growing on an arbor?

Muscadines do really well on arbors or pergolas.  The training is similar in that you still want to grow a permanent structure of one to three main stems with lateral branches. Once you have that in place, you just keep pruning back to four buds of the previous seasons growth annually in late winter. As the vine matures and gets thicker you’ll probably want to thin out some of the older branches  and remove crowded laterals to maintain openness.

Is pruning all grapes the same?

All grapes will flower and fruit on the previous seasons growth.  All grapes need to be pruned annually to maintain their productivity, by pruning back to two to four buds on the lateral branches in late winter.  Beyond that, there are numerous trellising systems that have been developed for different types of grapes and production systems. 

The NC Cooperative Extension Service’s website has some good information and illustrations on basic grape trellising and growing systems, including this comprehensive Caring for Backyard Muscadine Vines document.