Growing Grapes In Utah

As we look for crops to help us in our personal economic stimulus package, consider one of the first fruits ever domesticated. Worldwide, grapes are the most economically important fruits. In your garden, they are tasty treats that deserve a spot to show what they can produce. Grapes produce several important benefits for home gardeners. They start producing sooner than most fruit trees, and they are very productive. Most grapes do not have serious pest problems, so they don't need frequent sprays. The plants don't require much space, and they are drought tolerant — an important benefit for those who are trying to reduce water usage. Grapes can be used fresh, dried, juiced, jammed or jellied — or in many other ways. Because grapes can offer some great rewards, we are going to spend a couple of weeks to help improve your grape crop. There are several important aspects to consider, including what kind of grapes to grow, where to grow them and, probably most importantly, learning to prune them correctly. Visit most backyard grape plantings and you will see a rather dismal site. The vines have run amok. Instead of carefully trimmed, productive plants, you see neglected masses of vines piled several feet thick. You might see vines climbing to the top of large shade trees where only the birds can get the fruit. Even worse, some vines may be seen crawling along power lines, creating a hazardous situation. Grapes must be pruned correctly each year. While there are numerous systems for pruning grapes, the cane pruning system is the recommended way for the types grown in Utah. To understand grape pruning, we have to define a few terms. The trunk is the permanent stem of the plant and, like any other plant, it connects the roots and the stems. Immature, soft stem growths of the current growing season are shoots. Shoots arise from buds on wood that is one or more years old and bear leaves, flowers and fruit. On grapes, the stems that grew last year are now woody and are capable of producing fruit. Fruiting canes are allowed to fruit one season and are removed the following spring. For each fruiting cane on your plant, you need one renewal spur. A renewal spur is created by cutting back a one-year-old cane to two buds. Look for canes coming off the trunk near the wire on your trellis. The shoots growing from these spurs become the fruiting canes for the following year, thereby renewing the fruiting canes. Grapes must grow on a trellis to be productive. If you are planting a new vine and do not have a trellis, put in a stake or post and start establishing the trunk. If you buy a dormant plant, cut it back to two buds, or if you plant a growing plant later in the season, tie the longest cane to the stake so it will become the trunk. During the summer, shoots will grow from the cane that you have used as a trunk. When you prune next year, select one of the shoots to go along each wire on the trellis. If you have two wires, that means four canes, and if you have three wires, you will need six canes. Tie these to the wires and then cut them back so there are 10-15 buds on each cane. If the vine is robust, leave more buds, and if it is not growing as well, cut it back so it has fewer canes. For each fruiting cane, cut another cane back to two buds for a renewal spur. During the growing season, the buds on the fruiting canes will send out shoots that have leaves and fruit. Because only the one-year-old wood produces fruit, you know exactly where the fruit will come and will not be trying to find it on a cane that is growing high in a neighbor's tree. Once this cane fruits, it cannot produce fruit again. Therefore, during the dormant season, you are going to remove this cane and allow a cane that grew the previous summer from one of the buds on the renewal spur to take its place. You repeat the process each year to keep the plant the right size but vigorous. Once you establish the system, grapes are the easiest fruit plant to prune. They are pruned very heavily. In many cases, you may remove as much as 90 percent of last year's growth — so do not be timid when you undertake the task. Your reward for learning how to prune correctly? Think juicy luscious grapes that you can pop into your mouth at the peak of perfection. Once you get these producing in your garden, you will never want to be without them again.