Chambourcin Grape Growing Techniques (forum)

Richard starts with ...
Hi,

I was wanting some assistance in the best way to grow the chambourcin grapes. I've purchased a couple of plants and planted and built a trellis with 2 wires going across at 1m and 1.5m from the ground. The two plants I have got 2 main shoots. Would it be best to keep only 1 shoot till it is high enough then allow them to go either side and train 4 side arms at the two heights in either direction?

Time: 7th March 2011 4:52pm

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kert says...
Grapes generally fruit at one level only so it's conventional to have furcation at one level only . I will need to look up whether chambourcin is cane or spur pruned ;Ive yet to need a prune.

Time: 7th March 2011 6:13pm

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John Mc says...
This is a link to a very good video on grapevine pruning on Gardening Australia.
I can't paste the direct link to the video but I can post the link to the page it's on. Just scroll down the page till you see the video on "pruning grapevines".

http://www.abc.net.au/gardening/video/video_index_June2008.htm

Time: 7th March 2011 7:10pm

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Richard says...
John Mc the video is good very helpful. Good brief insight. Thanks.

Kert thanks so best to train along one wire and perhaps a few support wires above.

So I should prune the plants I have put back in to one main trunk when they drop all there leaves or sort them now?

I have planted my vines a distance of 2m between the plants. Noticed on the video they look probably a metre apart. Any best practise for plant spacing?



Time: 8th March 2011 10:02am

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kert says...
Pruning is done in July otherwise cuts 'bleed' . One wire is for arms of trunk ,other wire is for foliage. Best to set up something you can throw a net over or the birds will deprive you of the lot. Did you look up whether it is spur or cane pruned?

Time: 8th March 2011 10:14am

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Jason says...
I was working in a high class vineyard for a few years, there's heaps of different ways they are pruned commercially. But you can prune them to a double wire with 4 canes/4 spurs if you want it just makes the job more complex and take longer. Or you can prune them with wires opposite each other with a Y shaped double trunked vine and 2 canes off each end of it for a total of 4.

I guess that it doesn't matter how long it takes if you only have a few to do but with 100,000 vines to prune, you always want it over as quickly as possible so most of them are setup as a simple double cane or normal spurs :0. We used to do one fancy plot of 4 armed spurs, those were my favourite looking vines, very stylish when you have really old twisted vines pruned like that.

Some varieties prefer one pruning method over the other (cane or spur) but you seem to be able to get away with either on most varieties, we use to do 50% cane 50% spur with Pinot but it was slowly going towards being 100% spur since it's easier to cut them with machinery then.

I don't know if anyone cares about Wine grapes, but I discovered over the years that Chardonnay is the best "wine grape" for eating fresh :P, if I was a drinker I'm pretty sure that would be my flavour. It's really sharp grown down here, not very sweet but perhaps better than being sweet :0 I would choose it for eating over most table grapes.

I'm not into growing grapes myself but I would spur prune everything if I was, it's just much easier and better looking.

Also Richard, 2 meter spacing is fine. We use to have the canes/arms about a meter in each direction so I'd say they were on 2 meter spacing

Time: 8th March 2011 2:43pm

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kert says...
From what I read spur pruning is not suitable for everything because, if you only leave 2 nodes as is recommended for spur pruning, you will end up with few grapes ;this is because the first few nodes are not fruitful in some varieties.A quick check on Chambourcin reveals that it is spur pruned and, incidentally, this variety is sulphur sensitive as is Concord.

Time: 8th March 2011 4:39pm

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Jason says...
Yep as I understand it cane pruning gives more grapes most of the time even on varieties that can do both but the extra couple of bunches aren't usually worth the extra labour in a commercial vineyard, often you get too many grapes as it is and have to thin them.

Pretty sure we use to prune to 3 nodes on the spurs. With electric pruners it would only take a few seconds to prune each vine with spurs. Cane pruning takes slightly longer for a few reasons, it's harder to pull the old stuff off the wires, you need to think for a moment about the best way to re-cut the vine each year and you need 1 extra person to follow along and tie canes for each couple pruners. It's a really big job for 16?ish people, in pretty extreme conditions, Often you start in the dark at below 0c with ice hanging off the wires in the mornings :S. By the time you've almost done all 100,000 vines you're racing against the sap flowing and buds breaking and you've been there for months. Then you spend the next 3 months walking 25-30km each day lifting the vines and wires up to higher notches on the posts as they grow. Wine would probably taste a whole lot better if everyone knew what a pain it was to make :P.

There's just something awesome about an old spur pruned vine though, I wouldn't mind growing a couple at some stage just for looks :)

Time: 8th March 2011 5:17pm

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Richard says...
Hi guys cheers for the info very helpful.

Sounds like a real tough job out on a vineyard, keep you pretty fit though.

Will go with the 2 arms and spurs method might try the 3 buds and see how that goes. Should be a bit of fun getting it going over the next few years.

I was also going to grow a couple of table grapes, are they ok to just let run and grow their own way or beneficial to train and prune.I assuming less fruit without pruning and the plant putting more energy into growing the vine.

Time: 9th March 2011 10:40am

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kert says...
Yes, prune ;it is not hard and if you have a rambling ,disorderly vine it is difficult to place a net over it.

Time: 9th March 2011 3:05pm

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Richard says...
Ok no worries. Thank you for your assistance.

Time: 11th March 2011 11:20am

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Jo says...
Hi Richard,
I've just got some Chambourcin vines as well and found this post really helpful. Just wondering how big your plants were before you started pruning them. Mine are probably about 50-60cm in height with about 4 shoots on each. I'm wondering if it's too young to start pruning?

Any advice greatly appreciated.



Time: 1st October 2011 2:01pm

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John Mc says...
Hi Jo,
Have you seen this video?

http://www.abc.net.au/gardening/video/video_index_June2008.htm

It's a perfect refresher course starting from one year old vines. The video answers eveything you're asking for. Just scroll down the page to "pruning grapevines", all will be revealed.

Time: 1st October 2011 5:24pm

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