Introduction

Growing grapes has been a long tradition in many home gardens. Gardeners truly enjoy the fresh taste of homegrown grapes; however, the work to maintain grapevines can be a challenge. As with other fruit crops, grapevines need weeding, fertilizing, insect and disease control, and proper pruning to assure a bountiful harvest. For more information about homegrown grapes, refer to the OSU Extension Fact Sheet HYG-1423-98, Growing Grapes in the Home Fruit Planting at http://ohioline.osu.edu/ hyg-fact/1000/1423.html.

Proper training of grapevines is essential to maintain plant size, shape, and productivity. If left unattended, grapevines can become unruly, and fruiting will be poor due to overproduction of vegetation. This fact sheet is intended to help home gardeners gain a better understanding of the principles of grapevine pruning and the selection of training systems. Refer to the glossary of terms (on the last page) if you are not familiar with some of the terms used in this fact sheet. 

Read more about basic principles of pruning backyard grapevines…