Pruning Albany Surprise

I'd like to hear from Albany Surprise growers, and maybe Candice Red growers as well.

Albany Surprise and Candice Red are American cultivars, Albany Surprise being descended from or same as Isabella - or so I read. Everything I find says American cultivars are best cane pruned.

How do you prune your Albany Surprise! or Candice Red! - Spur or cane pruned!

I'd rather spur prune if I can, but I have already proven to myself that another American grape I have (Steubin) is only fruitful if cane pruned (wasted a few years pruning it wrong).

Edit to say don't worry I'm not wanting to prune them now. Right now the Steubin is loaded because I'm finally cane pruning it, and the Albany Surprise and the Canadice Red are reasonably loaded because it's their first productive year.

I let it grow until it had covered the area I wanted, and then remove any that are crossed over the others too much, trim the endsto keep it from going too far over and remove a few bits. That's it. remember the vineyards are after wine, we home growers want fruit. The nieghbour has one that he ha never pruned ever, I couldn't even find the start of it, his section is 1/4 acre and it's all over the place, entangled with Jasmine and Privet. He gets lots of great grapes still.

not much point getting heaps of fruit if is unaccessable,unripe and disaesed!
Albanys bear well with spur prunning but you still need your basic cordon where you want it and so the fruit gets reasonable exsposure to sun and wind for drying ventilation etc.i think albanys do actually perform slighlty better spur prunned to cane,they don`t like long canes,so multiple shorter ones,so you may as well spur prune and be done with it,all depends on your situation and room!

the weedy ones are normally a sign that you have laid down too many buds for the vine to support(alot of short canes instead of fewer healty strong ones!)some vines respond by not bursting all the buds and you get big gaps along your cordon,others burst all the buds and you get alot of weak spindly canes.You can only get to know allthese quirks by trial and error

We have a single Albany and it runs along the top of a pagoda, some 6 metres one way and 12 metres the other.
It has been trained over the years (12) to have two branches running horizontally parallel to each other, about 1 metre apart
It has a single trunk which grows though a hole on the wooden deck. Roots are cool all year round and where we are, the roof water is allowed to drain onto the ground under the deck.
The ground is very porous and dries out quickly
There is unlimited excellent ground water at a constant 1.2 metre depth., summer and winter.
Height from the ground level up to the top of the pagoda, about 4 metres.

Each year we prune the new growth backto2 buds.
I would HIGHLY recommend you look into giving your vine roots a good feed of a Calcium Nitrate dressing.
Our vine was giving inconsistent results until I asked a local commercial grape vine grower what would do they do.
He brought around a small quantity of calcium nitrate and this was watered in to the ground.
That woke it up ! !
That was 3 years ago and for the last two years we have been giving away barrow loads of grapes (2 1/2 last year to the local hospital) - just too many for us to handle - and they taste great.
No diseases and no problems, just very vigorous growth.
This year is looking good already.
Good luck

mark_g and others who know these things
I am about to plant an Albany Surprise grape so found this thread interesting . The photos you posted aregreatperhaps you can advise me on the construction of a frame I am wondering about the wiringetc.Google tells me about wire vices to hold wires but I doubt they are available here.We have a quantity of no 8 wire would that be suitable !and what did you use to retain them!and how tall do the posts need to be!