The effects of winter pruning time on bud break time, flowering time and shoot length on some table grapes

Late spring frosts have been occurred in most grape growing areas such as Aegean region in Turkey. One of the indirect measures to protect vineyards against to spring late frost is late winter pruning. The aim of this research is to determine the effects of early and late winter pruning times on bud break time, flowering time and shoot length of on ‘Red Globe’, ‘Alphonse Lavallée’, ‘Gelinöldüren’, ‘Bornova Misketi’ and ‘Gelin’ (Vitis vinifera L.). Vines were pruned two times on 18 November 2016 and 13 February 2017. When compared control vines, late pruning resulted in 4, 2.7 and 1 day late bud break for ‘Gelin’, ‘Bornova Misketi’ and ‘Alphonse Lavallée’ grape cultivars respectively. In addition, that full flowering time was become later 2, 1 and 1 day for ‘Alphonse Lavallée’, ‘Bornova Misketi’ and ‘Gelin’ respectively. Bud break and flowering times of ‘Gelinöldüren’ and ‘Red Globe’ were not affected by pruning times. Shoot length was significantly decreased by using late winter pruning in ‘Bornova Misketi’, Alponse Lavallée’ and ‘Red Globe’. As a result, bud break and flowering times of ‘Gelin’, ‘Bornova Misketi’ and ‘Alphonse Lavallée’ grapes were delayed by late winter pruning in spring. It is suggested that late spring winter pruning can be delayed until bud break.