Cutting buds off (guyot winter pruning lesson)

[clint.taylor91]

Hi guys, Clint from Australia here.

In the guyot winter pruning lesson, the pre recorded video, I see Marco cutting off the buds that will face down on the new fruiting cane. Does the Desiccation process still happen to these little cuts?

Eg. I’m re running new shoots to become new cordons from re worked vines, and i want to ensure the shoots from buds burst vertical. Can i follow Marco’s process here and trim off the underside buds with confidence it won’t harm sap flow in the future?

Thanks guys for such a great course by the way.

[tomcolman91]

I was literally wondering that myself as I am retraining pinot noir to have new cordons. I’m going with not doing the bud cuts and thinning within the season if required. As I am laying down arms that have good spacing already….. Potentially doing the bud cuts wouldn’t matter though as you don’t want spurs in that position anyway though……

[Luca]

Hi Clint,

In the webinar video, Marco is cutting the buds off of the fruiting cane. To ensure that only your desired positions bud you can do this with a cane pruning strategy because as Tom does mention you will not necessary return to those positions as a new cane will be used every season.

If you are wanting to create a Cordon arm I would not recommend “blinding” the buds as this will cause dieback and harm to your permanent structure. I would rather remove the unwanted shoots coming from underneath during the Spring suckering/shoot thinning time while leaving the basal buds to prevent any large wounds on your permanent structure.

Hope this helps and makes sense?

[clint.taylor91]

Hey tom, where do you reside mate?

We are currently reworking 60+ year old vines that are missing veg points, and have very long cordons, and show signs or Eutypa and die back from large cuts. We are looking to convert to S&S from here on in.

Luca, thank you so much for giving me a clear answer to this. We will settle for the summer time shoot thinning.

Thanks again both of you.