Dick,

I'm a little confused. A frost shoulcn't kill the vine back to the
roots. If your vine is split or dead, it probably was the result of
damage during the winter. Usually warm spells followed by really cold
spells will do a number on vines. Also, do you get much wind during
the winter??? Cold wind at night could do it. Are your vines in the
sun during the winter??? I hope so. Also, It seems to me that you're
leaving way too many buds. I would keep the bud count to 15-20 and see
if that helps. If you get a frost, leave the vines alone. The
secondary buds will shoot eventually. If the vine was pruned correctly
you needn't prune after the frost. Another thing that causes trunk
split is too much water or too heavy a soil that holds too much water.

Hope this helps


Bob

On Apr 7, 10:06*am, Dick Heckman > wrote:
> 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?