Dick Heckman wrote:

I'm in Huntsville, AL, 30 miles from the
Tennessee line and on a ridgetop.

Are you at an elevation that usually has mid April
freeze problems? If so, you may want to consider
other varieties. You may want to talk to your AG
person and see what they recommend. I know there
are several cold hardy varieties that have been
developed recently such as Frontenac.

Cabernet Franc also appears to be sort of cold
tolerant and is even grown in New York State.
When there are serious freeze problems here in
Central Maryland it is usually one of the
varieties that comes through in good shape.


I've got some 3 yr old Chancellor that survived.
Some of the Chancellor was hit bad and I
replaced it with Noiret which is now in it's
second

year. All existing Noiret was knocked back to
the ground and so all
Noiret is 2 yrs. Some of my Cynthiana had split
trunks and have been cut to the ground and
brought back up last year so they are 2 yr also
but I have some 3 yr Cynthiana as well. My
Chambourcin was hit the worst and none have
filled out cordons and several died completely.
I'll see what they do this year but I may swap
them for something else. All vines were
originally planted in 2006 so this is their 3rd
yr.

All vines have been trained to a high
cordon/spur system as that was recommended by
Tennessee ag station folks but I've been told
that Noiret likes longer spurs and I would think
that both Cynthiana and Chancellor would be the
same so I may go with a modified cordon/cane
high cordon type system.

The big question is with the older Cynthiana and
Chancellor. Should I cut the Chancellor back to
the 20 or 30 buds and the Cynthiana to 50 or 60
buds that balanced pruning would call for or
just trim prudently set the vine up for future
years and then clip clusters so that the vigor
goes to the vine.

Do you have spurs that are from last years growth?
or are you talking about spurs that had buds that
froze last year?


I've done a basic pruning but there are still
plenty of buds, particularly on the Cynthiana.

Dick

I think two or three years is a little soon to be
expecting fruit or much fruit. I am not familiar
with Cynthiana so maybe someone else could
advise.

On my vines, I typically prune back to two buds
above the graft union after the first year and
wait until the third year to put two canes on the
cordon wire. When I do this on the third year, I
keep the cordons short - about 18 inches and
build out each year from there.

It sounds like you have self rooted vines and not
growing on root stock. Maybe if you could find
some grafted vines they might do better? I am
only guessing here. Maybe others on this
newsgroup or your AG person can give you more
advice.



Paul E. Lehmann wrote:


I don't know your particulars such as variety
etc but I also lost about 80% of my fruiting
buds
last year. I was in the process of converting
from the lyre to a simple VSP trellising so
everything that produced shoots I left and let
it grow to produce carbs for the roots. I did
not loose any trunks and I had a lot of shoots
grow from old wood last year but of course they
were not fruitful.

This year I coverted from cordon - spur pruning
to
cane pruning. Cane pruning is suppose to offer
some advantages such as bigger clusters and
less
old wood to harbor overwintering disease. Time
will tell.

Where do you live and what are you growing?