Manual of American grape-growing

by U. P. Hedrick

Fig. 17. Keuka method of training.

"At each pruning for the first two years the vines are cut back to two buds. However, with strong-growing varieties like Concord, Niagara and Isabella, and under good soil conditions, the stem may be formed the second year. With moderate-growing varieties and under average conditions, the formation of the stem is left until the third year. The straightest and best-matured cane is left for the purpose. This is carried to the lower wire and there firmly tied with willow. As soon as the shoots have made sufficient growth they are loosely tied to the wires that they may be kept away from the tillage tools. The fourth year the head of the vine is formed. This should stand a few inches below the lower wire. Two canes growing from the stem near this position are selected, one being tied to the right and the other to the left along the lower wire. In the Keuka Lake District, the canes are tied with willows. In addition, at least two spurs of two buds each are retained near the head. With Concord, the canes may carry about ten buds each, but with Catawba, as grown on the hillsides of the Central Lakes Region of New York, the canes should not carry above six buds each. As the shoots develop from the horizontal canes, they are tied with rye straw to the middle and upper wires. This summer tying is almost continuous after the shoots are long enough to reach the middle wire.

"The following year all the wood is cut away except two or three canes that have developed from the basal buds of the canes put up the previous year, or that have grown from the spurs. In the event of a third cane being retained, it is tied along the middle wire. Spurs are again maintained close to the head for renewal purposes. The other two canes are tied along the lower wire as before. If the same spurs are used for a few years they become so long that the canes arising from them reach above the wire and cannot be well managed in the 'willowing.' It is desirable to provide new spurs annually, selecting those canes for the purpose that arise from the head of the vine or near it. It is possible by careful pruning to so cut away the old wood that practically all that remains after each pruning is the stem. Thus the vine is renewed almost to the ground. When the stem approaches the end of its usefulness, a shoot is allowed to grow from the ground, and the old one is cut away. [Figure 17] shows a vine pruned by the Keuka method.

"This method of training is especially well adapted to slow growing varieties, or those situated on poor soils, where but little wood growth is made. It is ideally adapted for the growing of Catawba on the hillsides of Keuka Lake. It is well adapted to late-maturing varieties planted out of their zone. Concord, growing under average conditions, is too vigorous to be trained by this method. It makes a tremendous growth of wood out of all proportion to the quantity of fruit, which is inclined to be very inferior. The chief objection to this method is the amount of summer tying involved which comes at a time when attention to tillage should be given. It might prove profitable in the growing of dessert varieties that have been discarded because of lack of vigor. On thin hillside soils, Catawba requires training modelled after this method but on the heavier upland ones, with shorter pruning, it can be grown on the Chautauqua Arm plan. Delaware, Iona, Dutchess, Campbell, Eumelan, Jessica, Vergennes and Regal are, as a rule, grown to better advantage when trained by the High Renewal method."

Fan-training.

The only other method now in use in which the shoots may be trained upright is that in which the canes are disposed of in fan-shape. This method was much used a generation ago but is rapidly becoming obsolete. In fan-training the renewals are made yearly from spurs near the ground, and the fruiting canes are carried up obliquely and so form a fan. The great advantage in fan-training is that a trunk is almost dispensed with, which greatly facilitates laying down the vine in winter where winter-protection is needed. There are several objections to this method in commercial plantations. The chief one is that the spurs become long, crooked and almost unmanageable so that renewals from the root must be made frequently. Another is that the fruit is borne close to the ground and becomes soiled with mud in dashing rains. The vines, also, are inconvenient in shape for tying. There are two or three modifications of fan-training which may be described as mongrel methods between this and the High Renewal and Horizontal Arm methods, none of which, however, is now in general favor.

II. Shoots drooping

Quite by accident, William Kniffin, a stone mason living at Clintondale, New York, in the Hudson River grape region, discovered that grapes of large size and handsome appearance could be grown on vines in which the canes were trained horizontally with the shoots drooping. He put his discovery in practice and from it have come the several methods of training grapes which bear his name. Kniffin's discovery was made about 1850 and the merits of his methods spread so rapidly over eastern America that by the end of the century the various Kniffin methods were more generally used than any others. Grape-growers now agree that strong-growing vines like Concord, Niagara and Clinton are best trained to one or another of the Kniffin methods. There are several modifications of Kniffin's method, three of which are now in common use, the most popular being the Single-stem, Four-cane Kniffin.