Pruning

Thanks to the great help from our volunteers, we have completed the first big job of the year in good time. Second to harvest, pruning is the most important thing we do in the vineyard – it sets the vines up for the growing season ahead and can have an impact on yield and canopy quality.

At Dunesforde we are training the vines on a replacement cane pruning system, which is now widely used across England and Wales. Each year we cut back most of last year’s growth, leaving only a couple of canes to tie down. New shoots appear from buds and will grow vertically to be arranged along the trellising, maximizing the amount of sunlight the leaves can capture and turn in to sugars in the grapes.

Due to our northerly location, we must be careful about potential frost damage which could have a significant impact on the fruit and the vines. While grape vines are naturally quite hardy, frost can affect how much fruit the vine will produce. A frost event could see new green shoots die back and while each bud has the potential to grow three shoots to protect against this, the vine puts most of its energy reserves into the first shoot. If two shoots are lost, there is a chance the third one will have no potential for fruit at all.

If you’d like to join us in the vineyard, get in touch with our vineyard manager on james@dunesforde.com to be added to his list of volunteers for when we have projects coming up. We also run volunteer days every Wednesday where you can come down to help out – just contact James if you’re interested. We’re really lucky to have such an amazing community and we love sharing our journey with these wonderful people.