Thank you for sharing your knowledge and experience, y'all are inspiring and have made it where my wife and I are more confident in our growing ability in the middle of nowhere harsh environment. Thank you again for laying the path to success.
Summer pruning gives you more volume in the grape cluster, plus your goats will truly love you, the commercial growers use a vertical, and a top wire tractor mounted rotary hi speed hedging trimmer, for you do the north side, feed your goats.
Hey guys, really can't get enough of your pruning video's. I've watched some 4-5 times already. Gives me the confidence to do it myself. We got our own house with little garden previous year, with a pear, fig and plum tree in it. Because of your video's I really started to like pruning, and I planted a grape and apple too! Greetings from The Netherlands ❤
Hello from Arizona! Glad you're enjoying the content and it's encouraging you with those fruit trees. I have to admit, we have gone from dreading pruning time to looking forward to it, because we know how much of a difference it makes come harvest time. Here's to a wonderful harvest on those trees of yours!!
That's a good call on a follow up at bud break George. Last year some of my favorite shots of the farm was early morning looking across the grapevines, so it's a good excuse to capture that!
Hi guys! I just noticed you’ve been back for a month, I need to get caught up! They’re pruning grapes out here in wine country like crazy right now. Don’t forget to stick a few canes in your raised beds to root them if you want to expand your vineyard, I do that when I prune my Cabernet vines and have quite a few of them now.
Good to see you in the comment section again here Jared. Good call on rooting these out. Lori and I were just talking about that this morning. If the Monukka vines continue to underperform they're getting replaced by more Syrah. That batch of wine was our favorite this past year.
I pruned my grape vine which is a purple one like a Concord but probably a different variety (about 30+ years old and came with the home) last month. Pruned it heavily last year and pretty lightly this year. Had caterpillars and grasshoppers eat the leaves after I had harvested last season so hope it will do fine and spring back well. No sign of bugs yet but it is still freezing nightly.
Hey Linda. Usually vines will survive the removal of the leaves like that as they're very hardy. We have bud break on several of our fruit trees even with the freezing temps, but grapevines are almost always the last to break (and they're still completely dormant), so you still have more time.
So glad to see you back, great video! I got a few grapes last year but they haven't made it in the ground 😕 but Al is setting up fencing I will use to get them going! Now I know how to prune them, thanks!
You guys are amazing…to start I would not even think about growing anything in a place like the desert in Arizona….I guess I am totally wrong….I viewed so far all your videos about growing grapes up to February of this year and your journey is very inspiring….our weather is meant for growing grapes( not to mention all the citrus trees) I am building an arbor/ trellis for my grapes, by the way as I was driving on Route 66 to a restaurant today I “spotted” some grape plants on the side of the road, I used to drive the same road everyday going to college and there was nothing but fields and fields of grapes everywhere….now there only are a few plants left on the side of the road….these are the grapes that inspire Steinbeck to write “grapes of wrath” ….anyways I would like to see what was your production this year hopefully you posted a video about it….thank you for all the info you provided…
Really glad you're enjoying these grapevine videos. We've been very surprised with how well they've done and this year's production was pretty strong. Especially considering they're 2 years into production. We posted a couple of wine making videos with some of the production that I'll link for you here; ua-cam.com/video/pHTlPiXgiG8/v-deo.html ua-cam.com/video/No2CpVJlT5A/v-deo.html
Well, kids, looks like I better git 'er done. The Red Flame grape produced very well last year and would appear nicer if pruned back. The white grape, nothing and the blue needs to be trellised. That was put in last spring behind a chicken wire fence, with thorn brush stacked around it. Poor ol' Termite was told to stay OUT of the bed. The minute my back was turned, he wailed and yelped and ran off. Old cowboy saying, some men learn by reading, some by observation, but there's always some old boys that have to pee on the electric fence before they learn. Hope you had a very happy Valentine's Day. niio
Great question and yes, half of our varieties need cane pruning to be productive. We didn't get a chance to film that this year, but we'll need to focus on that next season.
We didn't save any this year, but last year we donated all of our viable cuttings to Reid at RSI growers, so folks had access to truly Arizona grown starts.
@@EdgeofNowhereFarm I am having trouble accessing bare root vines, everyone seems to be out of stock. RSI has none on their website. Thanks for the reply, Duane.
Do you send the cut branches thru the wood chipper for use under the vines? I’m wondering if like prefers like. 31 bottles sounded like a good month but then I remembered you have all your other fruit trees you use for wine. :)
Hey there Chet! Yes, we do send all of the pruned material through the chipper and then it winds up back on the trees. And yes, we do have a lot of fruit to turn into wine, but we found out pretty quickly that those are nothing compared to the quality from these wine grape varieties. It's easy to see why they have been bred specifically for making wine!
Awesome video! I'm a few years into learning about grapes and unfortunately, the last two years I've been plagued with powdery mildew. Have you ever dealt with that and have any tips? I tried last year and delayed it but lost all my grapes again. Thanks for any help or resources you can provide!
Hey there. Powdery mildew is something we really don't see much of here as we are so very dry. I assume you're not here in AZ? If so, you'll have to let me know how you're irrigating as that may be an issue. Either way, you'll want to make sure there is plenty of airflow through your vines, especially during the fruit ripening timeframe. Removing leaves around the clusters to help light penetration and also airflow will definitely help with both mildew and also to ripen the clusters.
Does the pruning stimulate the buds or do they wait till March no matter what? When I trim my aquatic plants in the bog filter from over growth, they explode with new shoots. Cuttings go to the Tilapia/Koi pond to get eaten.
They still wait until March before they break dormancy, but we've found they start pushing sap as early as February, so we have a pretty short window to get them pruned back.
Hey! As you know I'm new to grapes. I see cane and spur pruning even combination pruning. I only have Thompson grapes, what would be the most productive style of training them? Spur or cane?
Hey Kylan! Thompson is one of the varieties we have found really have to be cane pruned. We didn't shoot a cane pruning video this year, but yours are all new, so you can check out our video from last year where we showed how to prune those after their first growing season. I'll link it for you here; ua-cam.com/video/FBgw2AIg0fo/v-deo.html
I have white flies all over my grapes. I tried blasting with water and then soap and peppermint and neem, I just don't know what to do naturally to get rid of them.. Please help.. you guys are the best. You have inspired me here in AZ
Hmm, are you saying you have flies on them right now with the new growth pushing out? If so, it's probably just a matter of the additional moisture in the air from all the rains. Usually this is not a problem for us as it's so dry. Unless they're damaging the new shoots and leaves I would just hang in there until we see the hot/dry weather we're used to and it should clear up.
@@beadsapp808 If they're doing damage it may be worth trying a mixture of garlic and cayenne in water to see if that will keep them off. IV Organics also makes a spray on plant guard that would be worth trying as well. I'll link to their website for you here; ivorganics.com/product/3-in-1-plant-guard-spray/ If you decide to go with one of the IV organics products, be sure to use our discount code at checkout. It's EONFARM. Fingers crossed you'll be able to get those taken care of!
You have wiring at 3 feet and conduit at 6 feet... but I saw an additional wire. Is that at 4.5 feet? Just got my bareroots... going in the ground tomorrow!
Hey Kevin. Yes, we do have an additional wire at about 4.5' that we're able to temporarily attach new vine growth to in the Spring before they are long enough to reach the top wire/conduit.
The 2 buds of each spur will have growth so next year do you pick 2 buds on each of those two shoots ? Do you leave 1 cluster on each shoot ? Are you spur pruning instead Of cane pruning because these are wine grapes? Thanks Leo
Great questions Leo. The spurs are generally good for several years and they send new shoots out from not only the buds from last year's growth, but also further down on the spur (and also in other areas along the cordon), so you're able to choose a few buds pretty easy each season while keeping the overall spur height low. As for clusters, we typically leave all of them to ripen, however you can thin them back if you're wanting larger fruit. As for spur vs cane, that's a matter of the variety. The varieties we have here that are spur pruned are Cabernet, Syrah and Flame. The others are cane pruned - Thompson, Monukka and Zinfandel. Technically you could spur prune them all, but cane pruning a variety that should be spur pruned will generally give you less fruit.
We pretty much give everything a year before opening a bottle. Technically white wines shouldn't need as much time as reds to age/balance, but it's easier for us to keep track by just letting it sit for a year.
Sir I have a problem get woodchips for my orchard and may have to go and get them myself, I think I can probably only get pine-tree woodchips, juniper, pinion pines etc. Will pine-tree woodchips be good for the orchard?
Hey there David. In our experience any type of woody mulch is better than bare soil. In fact, for us here in AZ pine tree mulch is prized because of it's higher acidity (at least in the needles), because of our alkaline soil. That being said, it unless it's mixed INTO the soil it really won't change the alkalinity to any serious degree.
@@EdgeofNowhereFarm yes, well I'm going to put 6 inches on top the orchard and introduce some red wigglers and let it break down for a year before i plant anything, what do tou think?
Leaving extra spurs to ensure getting production on one cordon over another is only going to worsen the lack of growth on the other arm. It will cause the vine to be imbalanced, since they're trained vines and not trees. Vines are some of the most management-intensive perennial fruits you can grow! If you prune in a balanced fashion and limit spurs to 5-6 per arm the vine will be better balanced. This is of course a home vineyard, and do what you like, but you might notice a trend toward one side of the vine becoming more productive generally over time. Also, you want to use tie tape to FIRMLY secure your cordon on top of the cordon wire, wrapping the cordon around the wire can cause problems in the future, such as girdling, places for injury where diseases can grow, and if you have to tighten wires it can damage the vines and be a real pain. Consider getting 8"-10" cross arms and more canopy wire for your canopy to grow up into so that you have better airflow in your canopy microclimate. There are also other trellising strategies than VSP that you might find more appealing for getting higher yields. I'm sure there's other considerations, but if you'd like I'd be happy to share some resources and advice.
Hey Chris. This is perfect timing with your comment as we were just looking at this again yesterday. We do typically go back and tape the cordons as opposed to wrapping them and should have shown that here. It definitely makes sense that we may be creating an imbalance on the cordons by leaving too many spurs on one side. We still have time to go back and balance that out a bit, so we'll need to look at that again. Thanks for your advice!
@@EdgeofNowhereFarm There are actual trellising methods that are a single-cordon like that where the vine looks like an upside-down L. Beautiful thing about vines is you can always restructure with some heavy-handed pruning (e.g. cutting off cordons completely and training them into pergolas, Geneva Double-curtain etc.). I'm not too far from your farm, I'm a winegrower in the Verde Valley!
@@HocusPocusist oh wow, this is really cool. I had a feeling by the advice you were giving that you had done this a time or two! And here in AZ none the less!!
Great question. The primary reason is the fruit set occurs on the first 2-3 feet of new growth from the spur. With that, any spurs pointing towards the ground would fruit at or near ground level. To make it easier to harvest (and net if needed for birds) we prefer to have the fruit set all between the 3' and 6' wires.
Thank you for sharing your knowledge and experience, y'all are inspiring and have made it where my wife and I are more confident in our growing ability in the middle of nowhere harsh environment. Thank you again for laying the path to success.
Glad to hear it you guys!
Excellent video Spur Pruning Grapevines.lotto learn
Hey there Abid. Glad you enjoyed this one!
I gotta rematch your fertilizing videos, your plants have so much growth
Hey there Kyle. Grapevines are pretty simple as they do well with just a little bit of fertilizing. We usually use aged chicken manure for ours.
Wow, sure looks nice &neat after a good cut. You make it look so easy 🤩. Have a good weekend 👵🏻👩🌾❣️
One of the really cool parts of this time of year is seeing all the trees and vines pruned back and tidy!
@@EdgeofNowhereFarm I’m sure it is. But the farm Always looks neat & tidy 👍. 👵🏻👩🌾❣️
Summer pruning gives you more volume in the grape cluster, plus your goats will truly love you, the commercial growers use a vertical, and a top wire tractor mounted rotary hi speed hedging trimmer, for you do the north side, feed your goats.
Great suggestion. We thin these out a few times during the summer months for the goats, but nothing too heavy.
Hey guys, really can't get enough of your pruning video's. I've watched some 4-5 times already. Gives me the confidence to do it myself. We got our own house with little garden previous year, with a pear, fig and plum tree in it. Because of your video's I really started to like pruning, and I planted a grape and apple too! Greetings from The Netherlands ❤
Hello from Arizona! Glad you're enjoying the content and it's encouraging you with those fruit trees. I have to admit, we have gone from dreading pruning time to looking forward to it, because we know how much of a difference it makes come harvest time. Here's to a wonderful harvest on those trees of yours!!
Duane, an excellent tutorial on spur pruning! I hope you give us a short video at bud break. Your two-year old vines look more like 5 year olds!
That's a good call on a follow up at bud break George. Last year some of my favorite shots of the farm was early morning looking across the grapevines, so it's a good excuse to capture that!
Hi guys! I just noticed you’ve been back for a month, I need to get caught up! They’re pruning grapes out here in wine country like crazy right now. Don’t forget to stick a few canes in your raised beds to root them if you want to expand your vineyard, I do that when I prune my Cabernet vines and have quite a few of them now.
Good to see you in the comment section again here Jared. Good call on rooting these out. Lori and I were just talking about that this morning. If the Monukka vines continue to underperform they're getting replaced by more Syrah. That batch of wine was our favorite this past year.
I pruned my grape vine which is a purple one like a Concord but probably a different variety (about 30+ years old and came with the home) last month. Pruned it heavily last year and pretty lightly this year. Had caterpillars and grasshoppers eat the leaves after I had harvested last season so hope it will do fine and spring back well. No sign of bugs yet but it is still freezing nightly.
Hey Linda. Usually vines will survive the removal of the leaves like that as they're very hardy. We have bud break on several of our fruit trees even with the freezing temps, but grapevines are almost always the last to break (and they're still completely dormant), so you still have more time.
So glad to see you back, great video! I got a few grapes last year but they haven't made it in the ground 😕 but Al is setting up fencing I will use to get them going! Now I know how to prune them, thanks!
You guys will be very happy with those grapes. You guys have seen first hand just how much growth we get on grapevines out here!
@Edge of Nowhere Farm oh yes, we were so impressed! Hoping to have good grape harvest in the future too!
Great job and thank you for sharing.
Hey there Daniel! Glad you enjoyed this one.
Thanks!
Thanks Roger, that is very kind of you!
Eline emeğine sağlık bu güzel vlog için kolay gelsin hayırlı işler....👍👍👍👍
Mesut'a teşekkürler. Yılın bu zamanı bizim için her zaman yoğun bir zamandır!
@@EdgeofNowhereFarm zamanında eminim kırmızı şarap güzel olur gün batımında 🍷🍷🍷😎😎😎
@@mesutozsen903 ah evet, özellikle ilkbaharın başlarında yeşil ağaçlarla çevrili!
WHAT? No bloopers? 😂😂. Great informative video as usual. Wish my vines grew that vigorous. 👍
Every once in a while I (Duane) stay on target when shooting these, so this one's blooper free. That will never last though. 😉
@@EdgeofNowhereFarm 🤗😃😃
You guys are amazing…to start I would not even think about growing anything in a place like the desert in Arizona….I guess I am totally wrong….I viewed so far all your videos about growing grapes up to February of this year and your journey is very inspiring….our weather is meant for growing grapes( not to mention all the citrus trees) I am building an arbor/ trellis for my grapes, by the way as I was driving on Route 66 to a restaurant today I “spotted” some grape plants on the side of the road, I used to drive the same road everyday going to college and there was nothing but fields and fields of grapes everywhere….now there only are a few plants left on the side of the road….these are the grapes that inspire Steinbeck to write “grapes of wrath” ….anyways I would like to see what was your production this year hopefully you posted a video about it….thank you for all the info you provided…
Really glad you're enjoying these grapevine videos. We've been very surprised with how well they've done and this year's production was pretty strong. Especially considering they're 2 years into production. We posted a couple of wine making videos with some of the production that I'll link for you here;
ua-cam.com/video/pHTlPiXgiG8/v-deo.html
ua-cam.com/video/No2CpVJlT5A/v-deo.html
Well, kids, looks like I better git 'er done. The Red Flame grape produced very well last year and would appear nicer if pruned back. The white grape, nothing and the blue needs to be trellised. That was put in last spring behind a chicken wire fence, with thorn brush stacked around it. Poor ol' Termite was told to stay OUT of the bed. The minute my back was turned, he wailed and yelped and ran off. Old cowboy saying, some men learn by reading, some by observation, but there's always some old boys that have to pee on the electric fence before they learn. Hope you had a very happy Valentine's Day. niio
Martin, your stories always crack us up. Yet another reason to avoid the electric fence I suppose. 😉
Nice clean pruning!
Do you have any grapes that would do better with cane pruning?
Great question and yes, half of our varieties need cane pruning to be productive. We didn't get a chance to film that this year, but we'll need to focus on that next season.
Follow up question, Duane, did you save some shoots for propagating?
We didn't save any this year, but last year we donated all of our viable cuttings to Reid at RSI growers, so folks had access to truly Arizona grown starts.
@@EdgeofNowhereFarm I am having trouble accessing bare root vines, everyone seems to be out of stock. RSI has none on their website. Thanks for the reply, Duane.
@@glleon80517 it may be worth a phone call to Reid. He may have some available that he doesn't have up on his website.
Do you send the cut branches thru the wood chipper for use under the vines? I’m wondering if like prefers like. 31 bottles sounded like a good month but then I remembered you have all your other fruit trees you use for wine. :)
Hey there Chet! Yes, we do send all of the pruned material through the chipper and then it winds up back on the trees. And yes, we do have a lot of fruit to turn into wine, but we found out pretty quickly that those are nothing compared to the quality from these wine grape varieties. It's easy to see why they have been bred specifically for making wine!
Awesome video! I'm a few years into learning about grapes and unfortunately, the last two years I've been plagued with powdery mildew. Have you ever dealt with that and have any tips? I tried last year and delayed it but lost all my grapes again. Thanks for any help or resources you can provide!
Hey there. Powdery mildew is something we really don't see much of here as we are so very dry. I assume you're not here in AZ? If so, you'll have to let me know how you're irrigating as that may be an issue. Either way, you'll want to make sure there is plenty of airflow through your vines, especially during the fruit ripening timeframe. Removing leaves around the clusters to help light penetration and also airflow will definitely help with both mildew and also to ripen the clusters.
Does the pruning stimulate the buds or do they wait till March no matter what? When I trim my aquatic plants in the bog filter from over growth, they explode with new shoots. Cuttings go to the Tilapia/Koi pond to get eaten.
They still wait until March before they break dormancy, but we've found they start pushing sap as early as February, so we have a pretty short window to get them pruned back.
Hey! As you know I'm new to grapes. I see cane and spur pruning even combination pruning. I only have Thompson grapes, what would be the most productive style of training them? Spur or cane?
Hey Kylan! Thompson is one of the varieties we have found really have to be cane pruned. We didn't shoot a cane pruning video this year, but yours are all new, so you can check out our video from last year where we showed how to prune those after their first growing season. I'll link it for you here;
ua-cam.com/video/FBgw2AIg0fo/v-deo.html
@@EdgeofNowhereFarm I'll check it out now!! Thank you!
I have white flies all over my grapes. I tried blasting with water and then soap and peppermint and neem, I just don't know what to do naturally to get rid of them.. Please help.. you guys are the best. You have inspired me here in AZ
Hmm, are you saying you have flies on them right now with the new growth pushing out? If so, it's probably just a matter of the additional moisture in the air from all the rains. Usually this is not a problem for us as it's so dry. Unless they're damaging the new shoots and leaves I would just hang in there until we see the hot/dry weather we're used to and it should clear up.
@@EdgeofNowhereFarm Yeah they are going after all the new growth and destroying all the leaves..
@@beadsapp808 If they're doing damage it may be worth trying a mixture of garlic and cayenne in water to see if that will keep them off. IV Organics also makes a spray on plant guard that would be worth trying as well. I'll link to their website for you here;
ivorganics.com/product/3-in-1-plant-guard-spray/
If you decide to go with one of the IV organics products, be sure to use our discount code at checkout. It's EONFARM. Fingers crossed you'll be able to get those taken care of!
You have wiring at 3 feet and conduit at 6 feet... but I saw an additional wire. Is that at 4.5 feet? Just got my bareroots... going in the ground tomorrow!
Hey Kevin. Yes, we do have an additional wire at about 4.5' that we're able to temporarily attach new vine growth to in the Spring before they are long enough to reach the top wire/conduit.
👍👍👍👍👍
Glad you enjoyed this one Irina!
The 2 buds of each spur will have growth so next year do you pick 2 buds on each of those two shoots ?
Do you leave 1 cluster on each shoot ?
Are you spur pruning instead
Of cane pruning because these are wine grapes?
Thanks
Leo
Great questions Leo. The spurs are generally good for several years and they send new shoots out from not only the buds from last year's growth, but also further down on the spur (and also in other areas along the cordon), so you're able to choose a few buds pretty easy each season while keeping the overall spur height low. As for clusters, we typically leave all of them to ripen, however you can thin them back if you're wanting larger fruit. As for spur vs cane, that's a matter of the variety. The varieties we have here that are spur pruned are Cabernet, Syrah and Flame. The others are cane pruned - Thompson, Monukka and Zinfandel. Technically you could spur prune them all, but cane pruning a variety that should be spur pruned will generally give you less fruit.
Thanks
Hmmmm… do you guys sell your bottles of wine?
We don't sell them right now. Not sure if we want to head down that route as it would require a whole lot of government oversight.
Do you have grape vine hornworms problem in your area?
We get the grape leaf skeletonizers, but it's pretty rare to see them out here.
How long do you wait to drink the wine after you cork it? (You may have already answered that question, but I didn't see it)
We pretty much give everything a year before opening a bottle. Technically white wines shouldn't need as much time as reds to age/balance, but it's easier for us to keep track by just letting it sit for a year.
Sir I have a problem get woodchips for my orchard and may have to go and get them myself, I think I can probably only get pine-tree woodchips, juniper, pinion pines etc. Will pine-tree woodchips be good for the orchard?
Hey there David. In our experience any type of woody mulch is better than bare soil. In fact, for us here in AZ pine tree mulch is prized because of it's higher acidity (at least in the needles), because of our alkaline soil. That being said, it unless it's mixed INTO the soil it really won't change the alkalinity to any serious degree.
@@EdgeofNowhereFarm yes, well I'm going to put 6 inches on top the orchard and introduce some red wigglers and let it break down for a year before i plant anything, what do tou think?
@@davidhein5679 As long as you have consistent moisture that will do well to encourage soil development.
Leaving extra spurs to ensure getting production on one cordon over another is only going to worsen the lack of growth on the other arm. It will cause the vine to be imbalanced, since they're trained vines and not trees. Vines are some of the most management-intensive perennial fruits you can grow! If you prune in a balanced fashion and limit spurs to 5-6 per arm the vine will be better balanced. This is of course a home vineyard, and do what you like, but you might notice a trend toward one side of the vine becoming more productive generally over time. Also, you want to use tie tape to FIRMLY secure your cordon on top of the cordon wire, wrapping the cordon around the wire can cause problems in the future, such as girdling, places for injury where diseases can grow, and if you have to tighten wires it can damage the vines and be a real pain. Consider getting 8"-10" cross arms and more canopy wire for your canopy to grow up into so that you have better airflow in your canopy microclimate. There are also other trellising strategies than VSP that you might find more appealing for getting higher yields. I'm sure there's other considerations, but if you'd like I'd be happy to share some resources and advice.
Hey Chris. This is perfect timing with your comment as we were just looking at this again yesterday. We do typically go back and tape the cordons as opposed to wrapping them and should have shown that here. It definitely makes sense that we may be creating an imbalance on the cordons by leaving too many spurs on one side. We still have time to go back and balance that out a bit, so we'll need to look at that again. Thanks for your advice!
@@EdgeofNowhereFarm There are actual trellising methods that are a single-cordon like that where the vine looks like an upside-down L. Beautiful thing about vines is you can always restructure with some heavy-handed pruning (e.g. cutting off cordons completely and training them into pergolas, Geneva Double-curtain etc.). I'm not too far from your farm, I'm a winegrower in the Verde Valley!
@@HocusPocusist oh wow, this is really cool. I had a feeling by the advice you were giving that you had done this a time or two! And here in AZ none the less!!
Why take remove the branches off the cordons that are facing down?
Great question. The primary reason is the fruit set occurs on the first 2-3 feet of new growth from the spur. With that, any spurs pointing towards the ground would fruit at or near ground level. To make it easier to harvest (and net if needed for birds) we prefer to have the fruit set all between the 3' and 6' wires.
I get big fat green worms on my grape vines and they are hard to remove. I have to cover my grapes.
We get those from time to time as well, but not in large enough numbers to do any serious damage.