everyone welcome back to the homestead
welcome back inside of our grape
enclosure where we're gonna talk about
how to train your fruiting arms out over
the outside water of your trellis system
let's go so as you can see we've got a
small problem here our bird netting on
top is starting to mingle with our grape
vines and those fruiting arms are
getting out of control we are behind
schedule on this so we need to get these
tied out over our wire and I'll show you
how to tip prune these so that they put
more energy back into the fruit that
right there is a red flame seedless
grape and I'm gonna need to build a
different trellis for that a new trellis
I've got several grapes down there so I
want you to stick around on the channel
by hitting that subscribe button to see
cool new future projects like that
alright let's get back to this one so
here is our trellis system for our
muscadine grapes and you don't have to
trellis them like this there are many
many many types of different trellis
systems to use but we thought this would
be the easiest we did talk about this in
some past videos this is a modified
Monson it's actually a modified modified
Monson because I didn't make it exactly
the same as the way they make the
modified Monson trellis system I just
got a post here at E across the top and
for wires we train the main arms down
the two inside wires and hang the
fruiting spurs I should call them the
fruiting spurs outside over the outside
wire so that's how this trellis system
works and hangs here at eye level all
the all the vines hang here at eye level
so the grapes just hang right underneath
at this point right here and it's really
easy to pick so I just have just a few
simple tools with me today some pruning
shears alcohol a cloth and these cool
like rolled up twisty tie deals I love
these things in my garden they work
really well I put these down in the
description below but the alcohol is to
clean off your pruning shears after you
use them between each plant so you make
sure you want to do that every single
time alright to train these I'm just
gonna bend these down
I'll get them out of my burden inning
above my head they are already getting
very integrated into the bird netting
above so you might need your pruning
shears
if you've let them get them out of
control like I have so every one of
these is gonna produce fruit and we want
to take a little piece of twisty tie not
a huge piece just a little piece and tie
these out to the outside wire so just
take that flute fruiting lateral and
we're gonna take it out to the outside
wire and just tie it to it it's really
that simple
so you can see that lateral that I just
tied down has all of these little flower
buds in this grape cluster and this work
is where the grapes will form the
flowers will form first they'll get
pollen pollinated and then the grapes
will form here you can see they're right
underneath and when you tie that that
arm down it's gonna be really easy to
harvest and keep these under control
which you really need to do so this is
an area where the pruners are going to
be incredibly necessary this is the
trunk of one of our grapevines right
here and this is the end of the other
one from the other side and they are
starting to grow together I don't want
that to happen I want each plant to be
separated and just it's a lot easier to
manage and keep under control they are
starting to grow together and I don't
really like that so I'm going to take a
lot of these you definitely want to
prune anything off your trunk because
that's going to take away from the the
growth in your trunk and in your total
plant you want all of that growth and
energy to go up into your your fruiting
arm or your arms and your fruiting spurs
or laterals so here is something that
grows off the trunk regularly you just
need to pinch it off and take it off
what what I do need to do is come in
here and cut back the ones that have
already come in from the other side or
the other
grapevine get them out of the way keep
them separate so here's one of our
laterals now I know I keep using
the terminology a little bit incorrectly
here this is a lateral the spur is
actually on the main arm or one of the
two main arms its self and that's where
all these laterals these fruiting
laterals come out in the springtime and
that the spur is where you will prune
back every every fall or every winter
prune it back and the new laterals work
will come out of those every spring so
we've tied one of our laterals off and
this is pretty long this is probably 15
inches past hour outside wire here and
there's no fruit on the end here so what
we want to do is if it's tender enough
you can just pinch it off and it's not
so I'm going to take my pruners and just
cut the tip off other ones that are very
tender and you want to get out there you
can just tip prune them like this and
pull the tip off of it like that what
that's going to do is stop the growth on
the end and it's going to put the energy
back into the lateral itself giving you
better fruit and giving you more energy
for that fruit production so make sure
you do that you don't want your grapes
or muscadines as these are to get out of
control as you can see some of these
laterals have actually already attached
themselves to the outer wire naturally
but with these tendrils and I'm going to
leave those alone there's absolutely
nothing that I need to do with that one
except to pinch or tip prune the end of
it now another thing you're going to
have to prune are these extra shoots
that come off of your arms they are not
in the same area they didn't come off
your your spur that you prune in the
fall they came off a completely
different area of the arm so what we're
gonna do is we're gonna take some of
those off now some of those are alright
and we're gonna let them fruit but if
they're growing in a completely odd
direction like back into the inside of
your system instead of kind of being on
this side and hanging on the outside
this one I think is okay cuz I can bend
it down and tie it to the outside wire
but like the one right behind it if you
can see that the one right behind that
is
in the opposite direction and you don't
want that to happen because it's just a
pain in the butt and it to keep your
vines nice and clean and easy to prune
and easy to take care of and manage
during the season and easy to pick you
want something that's that's really
trimmed up pruned up nice symmetrical
and and really is easy to work with so
get those out of there so let's show you
this is the one of the main fruiting
arms this the spur we pruned last year
we've pruned it back to either two to
three buds I can't remember whichever
one and we did on this one but you as
you can see we've got one fruiting
lateral two fruiting laterals three
fruiting laterals coming out of this one
spur here that we've pruned and that is
how you multiply your fruit production
and we want to do these Spurs every six
inches or so some are a little closer
depending on where they were summer you
want to put your fist in between and
this one's a little tight a little too
close but no big deal this one next to
it shot off one two off of it so right
as you can see we've got five little
fruiting laterals that will lay out over
this outside wire over here that will
produce fruit and hang fruit down if you
have any questions we want to help you
out with them so don't forget to leave a
comment in the comment section below and
subscribe to the channel and now I want
you to watch these videos right here
which is our series on how to Train
grapevines have a great day we'll see
you next time
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