The guys work fast. They are able to evaluate which of the branches they want to save. They quickly cut the extras off. Then they clean up the remaining vines of small branches and buds. I was a bit confused at first. Where are the canes that produced fruit last year? When I looked at the vines that hadn't been pruned yet and realized it is a two part process. First they remove the branches they trained to the trellis last year. Then, once all of those are removed, the crew moves on to training new ones to the wire.
Pruning is a two year process. This spring many buds will break out around the base of the vine and the crew will go out and remove most of them. They will let four or five of them mature. These will be the branches that they train along the wire the next year to give them a new crop. If you mess up the pruning now, you could harm the harvest for two years. You have to know what you are doing. As they select the branch they bend it over one direction or another and then wrap it around the wire. The branch is trimmed to length so that it doesn't overlap with the one coming from the other direction.
The final step is to tie a piece of twine around the end of the branch to secure it to the wire. They have a cool tool that grabs the twine and twists it in a knot. It also has a cutting tool to remove the extra twine. I asked how they selected which branches to keep. Generally they like branches that don't protrude out into the space between the vines. They also like the ones growing lowest on the main vine. Ideally the branches should be about as thick as a pencil, and have buds about a hand width apart. Each one of these buds will send up a vertical shoot this spring and each of those branches will produce one or two clusters of grapes
Every once in a while the workers will decide to take off the top of the vine. It is so dramatic. There is an example of this cut in the photo to the right. You can see that the previous year a branch was left well below the others. You might think that such drastic cutting would harm the vines but it does not--as long as you know what you are doing!
I'm always shocked by how much of the vine is removed each year. Why is that? Pruning is an energy focusing activity. Grape vines are related to ivy. Left to their own devices they would produce nothing but branches.
In John 15 Jesus talks about vines. Their job is to be fruitful. Non-fruiting branches are cut off. Last Sunday at McMinnville Cooperative Ministries we celebrated a feeding ministry at our church. Then we announced we were letting it go. It seemed to have run its course. That is so rare in a church. Typically once we start some ministry, or activity we continue it until the second coming of Christ! How healthy to celebrate all that good work, and then be willing to let go.
I sometimes struggle with focus in my own life. I like so many different things and it's hard to let go of any of them and just concentrate on one thing for any extended period of time. Pruning is the process of deciding what is truly important, and then making choices based on those priorities. Very difficult to do, but it is the only way to be truly fruitful in life.
