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

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.

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

Dick


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?