Grape Management Techniques in November

In November, the grapevines enter a period of leaf shedding and dormancy. During this month, the main tasks in the vineyard include pruning and shaping, collecting and storing cuttings, transplanting seedlings, and cleaning the orchard . Let’s learn about grape management techniques in November.

1. Water Management

In northern vineyards, the entire vineyard should be fully irrigated after the leaves fall and before the soil freezes, which is called freeze-proof water. At this time, the transpiration of the plants and the evaporation of the soil are at their lowest throughout the year. The soil can maintain good humidity throughout the winter and has a strong buffering capacity, which helps to significantly improve the cold resistance of the grapevines. In the southern vineyards, irrigation should be carried out in a timely manner according to the moisture conditions of the soil, especially for those orchards that apply organic fertilizers this month, irrigation should be carried out immediately after fertilization.

2. Pest and disease control

When pruning in winter, remove branches that are infected with diseases and insect pests and treat them collectively. At the same time, diseased fruits, diseased branches, diseased leaves and weeds inside and outside the vineyard should be cleaned up and burned or buried in time.

3. Winter pruning

In areas where burying is required for cold protection, pruning is usually done immediately after the leaves fall in autumn so that cold protection can be carried out in time. In areas where there is no need to bury the trees in the soil to protect them from the cold, pruning can be done 2-3 weeks after the leaves fall until the sap flows next year.

1. Winter pruning method

Shortening: refers to cutting off part of the annual branches. Depending on the length of the cutting, short cutting can be divided into short tip pruning (cutting 1-4 buds), medium tip pruning (cutting 5-7 buds) and long tip pruning (cutting 8 or more buds). When pruning, choose mature and strong one-year-old branches as fruiting mother branches, and ensure that the cut is smooth. The thickness of the branches below the cut should be more than 0.6 cm. The thin ones should be kept short, and the thick ones should be kept long. The cut should be 3-4 cm away from the bud below to prevent the cut from drying out and affecting the germination of the bud.

Thinning: refers to completely cutting off annual branches or perennial vines from the base. The main thing is to thin out the dense branches, diseased and insect-infested branches, dead branches, thin branches and suckers that have no use value. When thinning branches, be careful not to make the wound too large, and try to keep the wounds from different years on the same side of the main vine to avoid causing overlapping wounds that affect the transport of nutrients and water in the tree.

-Pruning: refers to cutting branches and vines that are two years old or older to the branching point or one-year-old branches. It is mainly used for renewal, regulating tree vigor and solving lighting problems. When pruning perennial weak branches, strong branches should be left under the cut to play a role in renewal and rejuvenation. When pruning strong perennial branches, it is advisable to leave moderate branches below the cut and appropriately remove some of the super-strong branches to balance the branch strength, weaken nutritional growth, and promote flowering and fruiting.

2. Pruning of main and side branches

For grape plants that are in the process of shaping, the focus of winter pruning is to further select the main and side vines, and to cut at the mature nodes and full buds in the appropriate positions. For plants in the peak fruit-bearing period that have completed the shaping task, it is necessary to maintain the vigorous growth momentum of the main and side vines, and focus on small renewal in winter pruning, including changing the heads of the main and side vines and selecting reserve vines. For plants that are beginning to age, major renewal pruning should be carried out. If the fruiting parts of the main and side vines move outward, they can be pruned back and renewed, and the middle and lower branch groups can be renewed to improve light and promote the formation of strong new shoots and fruiting in the middle and lower parts. When the main vine is weak and the yield is very low, you can select new shoots from the lower part of the main vine and carefully cultivate them into reserve vines for the main vine. After the reserve vine starts to bear fruit, the original main vine can be cut off and replaced by the reserve vine as the new main vine.

3. Cultivation and pruning of fruiting branches

A fruiting branch group is a fruiting unit with two or more branches, on which fruiting mother branches and new shoots are borne.

Generally speaking, some new shoots sprout from the fruiting mother branches, or after the strong new shoots are pinched off in advance, several lateral shoots are promoted. With careful cultivation, the new shoots or lateral shoots are shortened during winter pruning to become new fruiting mother branches. The original fruiting mother branches or the original new shoots become fruiting branch groups with more than two branches.

As the age of the branches increases, the number of wounds increases, and dead stumps appear. The nutrient transport capacity of the branch group weakens, and the branch group gradually ages. At this time, the fruiting mother branches of the old branch group can be gradually retracted to stimulate the germination of latent buds at the main vine or branch group base. For latent buds and new shoots, thin out the inflorescences to prevent them from bearing fruit and promote growth. If the new shoots are strong, pinch off the top when they have 5-6 leaves to promote the growth of lateral shoots. During winter pruning, the lateral shoots are cut short to become new branches, and the surrounding old branches are thinned out to renew and rejuvenate all branches year by year. If this is done every year, each branch group can be renewed every 3-5 years, which can ensure that the branch groups are strong and the plants produce good yields year after year.

4. Determine the pruning length of the fruiting mother branches

The pruning length of the fruiting mother branches should be determined according to specific conditions. Because the formation of a pruning system is often influenced by many factors, such as variety characteristics, pruning forms, cultivation and management conditions and habits, etc. Generally speaking, for most varieties, whether short-tip pruning or long-tip pruning is used, roughly the same yield and quality can be achieved as long as a series of cultivation and management measures are coordinated with each other. Therefore, it is not appropriate to determine the pruning length based solely on the fruiting habits of the variety, nor is it appropriate to mechanically divide it into long-tip pruning varieties and short-tip pruning varieties. Of course, pruning based on the characteristics of the variety is not ruled out.

The pruning lengths of the three types of fruiting mother branches are all flexible to a certain extent, and generally need to be flexibly controlled according to the thickness of the fruiting mother branches. Within the prescribed range of the number of buds to be retained, in principle, strong and full fruiting mother branches can be retained longer, otherwise they should be retained shorter.

5. Update of fruiting mother branches

When pruning middle and long shoots, in order to control the outward migration of the fruiting part and ensure that good quality fruiting mother branches are obtained every year, the double-branch renewal pruning method is generally adopted, that is, a preparatory branch with two buds is left at the bottom of the middle or long shoot. After the middle and long shoots complete the fruiting task, the two new shoots that emerge on the preparatory branch during winter pruning, the upper one is still pruned as the middle and long shoot, and the lower one still leaves two buds as preparatory branches.

In addition, single-branch renewal pruning can also be used, that is, no reserve branches are left during winter pruning, only fruiting mother branches are left. After budding the following year, good new shoots at the bottom are selected to be cultivated into fruiting mother branches. There is no need to retain fruiting mother branches when pruning short shoots. The short shoots themselves play a dual role as fruiting mother branches and preparatory branches. However, when pruning in winter every year, new shoots close to the main vine should be selected as short shoot fruiting mother branches as much as possible to prevent the fruiting part from moving outward. When the base axis of the branch group is too long, it is advisable to use the new shoots from the lower latent buds to shrink and renew them in time so that the fruiting part will not be far away from the main vine.

4. Winter protection

The period for burying grapes to protect them from the cold varies according to local climatic conditions, and should generally be done about one week before the soil in the vineyard freezes. If the soil is frozen too late, in addition to making it difficult to bury the soil, gaps will easily form between the frozen blocks, allowing cold air to penetrate into the soil pile and freeze the plants. If the soil is frozen too early, the plants will not receive sufficient cold-resistant training and will have poor ability to overwinter. At the same time, the temperature inside the soil pile will be high, which will easily breed pathogens and harm the grape branches and buds.

There are many ways to protect grapes from the cold by burying them in the soil, and the most commonly used method is to bury them in the ground. The specific method is: take the pruned branches and vines down from the rack, straighten them, tie them up, and lay them flat in one direction, then take soil from between the rows and bury them on the branches and vines; when burying the soil, first squeeze the soil tightly on both sides of the branches and vines, then cover the soil to the required width and thickness. When burying the soil, you should pat the soil while adding soil to prevent air leakage in the soil pile.

5. Seedling Collection and Storage

When grapes are winter pruned, a large number of annual branches are cut off, which are often used as propagation materials in production. They can be used for indoor grafting in winter or hard branch cuttings in the spring of the following year. The specific operation is the grape propagation and seedling raising part.

6. Seedlings out of the nursery

The period from when the grape leaves fall to when the soil freezes is the time for transplanting seedlings. For specific operations, please refer to the grape propagation and seedling raising section.

The above are the key points of grape management techniques in November. You can refer to them according to the actual situation of your own orchard. I hope it will be helpful to you.