Pruning Muscadine Vines



Properly pruned vine.



       The best time to prune your muscadine vines is during the winter when they are dormant -sometime between mid-January to mid-March. Pruning of the past seasons growth must be done each winter to ensure a high quality crop with vigorous growth. Failure to prune annually can result in a night-mare mass of vines and very few fruit.

     After a muscadine vine has been trained, you want to cut off 70 to 90 percent of last year‟s growth. The shoots of muscadine grapes arise from buds in the leaf axils of the past seasons growth. The fruit of mus-cadine grapes is borne on the current year‟s growth. A good recommendation is to prune the previous year‟s growth back to 2 to 4 buds.

    Also, prune out lateral branches every 6 inches between each branch. Re-member to remove excess tendrils to prevent girdling of the vine.