This year we have “real” cane pruned arms so the act of suckering, shoot thinning and removing doubles is a little more straight forward.  In the picture above I hope you can see that one of the positions has 2 shoots, a large one and a small one.  Since you want the shoots to be strong you only want one at each location.  So, you pinch it off.  In addition, you have to sucker buds on the trunk and make sure you leave shoots that will grow into next years canes.  It takes practice and a few years of watching what you did and the result at harvest and the following year to get really good at it…

Below is a picture of the good vine along.  The last picture is our front vineyard.  As you can see it is cordon pruned, so we don’t have to pick shoots to keep for next years canes.  I know this might be to much for most of you, but needless to say, each vine you have to make numerous decisions in order to ensure good fruit this year and a healthy, productive vine next year.