Re: Big Jon Hunt
Brock,
This is a really exciting topic to discuss. I used the X-mas tree type of
pruning myself. I found that once the side vines got to about 17 feet long
they slowed way down on the daily growth. When the first couple of side
vines got to the edge of the patch I cut them off and buried them. After
about a week of terminating the side vines I noticed all the side vines
slowed way down about the same length about 17 feet. I decided to
terminate all the side vines at that length thinking it was at that point
the vine became predatory to the plant. In other words it was growing vine
to support vine not fruit. This is the point where you were saying 7 feet
is too short for side vines and 20 feet is probably too long. Last week I
was at a growers gathering in Napa and I had a chance to chat with a local
winery owner about this very subject. He asked me how I pruned the plants
and after explaining my technique he told me U. C. Davis has done extensive
research on wine grapes and found that the canes coming off of the vines
became predatory after about the 14 leaf on each individual cane and didn't
put any energy back to the bunch of grapes on that specific cane. When I
visited with another Napa grower earlier this year I noticed he pruned one
plant heavily that specific plant produced a nice pumpkin but not as big as
the rest of pumpkins in his patch. This would lean towards plant size and
selective pruning techniques to produce world class fruit.
By trimming every other side vine I noticed I had more air between the
leaves. This left room for the overhead sprinklers to get good coverage
and hit bare soil not just leaves and run down the leaf stalks. This also
helped the leaves dry out faster once the mister system turned off in the
early evening. Decreasing the chance for mildew. One other factor was
having space between the leaves allowed the leaves to grow larger. The
larger leaf gave what appeared to be the same amount of photosynthesis as a
plant that wasn't pruned in the same manner.
Jon
At 08:03 PM 12/15/99 -0800, you wrote:
>Jon,
>
>Here's the dilima, what I have seen in my patch is I had tried huge plants
>for a three years with results in the 650 range. Then i tried the X-mas
>tree style terminating secondary vines at 10 feet. Hit my personal best
>744. Then this year took them down even further to 7ft. Hit near 700 with
>rough weather conditions. I felt that cutting them down to 7 would be the
>equivalent to cutting out every other secondary. I believe that there is a
>level to which plants are EFFICIENT and then theres a point where its
>EXCESS and not really helping much? Was this your first year taking out
>every other secondary?? Now I am not sure but i think big Chris A. had a
>huge plant and didn't take out secondaries. 2 ...900+ different pruning
>tech. I think determining the number of leaves may depend on your
>climate or daylight hours so different growers have different experiences.
>I also wonder as long as there is some pruning and control of the plant the
>technique or style of pruning may not be as crucial as we think?? any
>thoughts from your experiences??...........Brock
>
>
>
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