Grape vine care

[russell]

I have two grape vines in my garden, muscat blanc and muscat noire. Each takes up about 4 m of fence. This year after all the spring rain they have put on an enormous amount of growth. I have cut back all the unproductive shoots about halfway. I am left with about 50 bunches of grapes developing on each vine. I am thinking I should reduce the number to get better quality (for eating) but how many should I leave on each vine?

Russell.

[Santiago]

I'm not sure about the optimal yields for table grapes but in order to make wine from Muscat, I only have about 10-20 bunches per vine.

You need to do your pruning back in the winter, it could be too late now. Take off the non-fruiting shoots completely but do not trim the ones with fruit on more than 12 leaves above the bunch.

Better make sure you are spraying sulphur and copper sulphate on them every 10 days otherwise your yield will be zero. Loads of Powdery and Downy Mildew around this year. You can stop spraying when they change colour (veraison) if they are clean at that time.

There are lots of resources on the web for growing vines. My advice only costs your custom

[russell]

Thanks, 10 to 20 it is than.

Yes, I do prune hard in winter and spray regularly with Bordeaux mixture.

Russell.

[MountainGal]

Thanks, 10 to 20 it is than.

Yes, I do prune hard in winter and spray regularly with Bordeaux mixture.

Russell.

Where are you based? My daughter's father has worked the vinyards for years and is something of an expert and always happy to share his knowledge.

[russell]

Yes it's that time of year again. We're in Millas.

Russell.

[MountainGal]

Ok, I'll have a word with him and see if we can pop over sometime.