I have a few thoughts... I've tried cane pruning on a couple vines, and I couldn't tell any difference in the fruit quality or the yield so I abandoned the idea. I find spur pruning to be quicker and a lot simpler. In my opinion, either method is fine unless you are dealing with one of those few varieties that do no produce fruit on the first few buds. Dis-regarding those varieties, just go with what you know and what works for you. The only other reason I can see that cane pruning would be better is that buds with high light exposure usually produce more fruit. With cane pruning you can choose the canes that got the most light whereas with spur pruning your choices are very limited. We have plenty of sunshine here, so I don't see it as an issue, but in Oregon (not as much sunshine) it may be more important. I'm guessing the distinction between table and wine grapes is because, with wine grapes, you don't want high yield (many clusters are often dropped at veraison) so being a little less fruitful is no problem. I've visited several commercial vineyards here in Idaho. We have both table and wine grape vineyards in the area, and all that I have visited are spur pruning and producing very high quality fruit. I know that what is best for commercial growers is not always what is best for "backyard" growers, but in this case, it does show that spur pruning is commercially viable (at least in the Snake River Valley). Fruitnut, I think it was you who, a couple of years ago, advised me to visit the U of I research facility. I'm really glad you did, I got some vines (cuttings) from them and learned a lot about viticulture and fruit growing in general. Thanks for the suggestion.

Aaacckkk. I was hoping everybody would agree on one method being superior. :) Derek, if you could take a picture that would be really helpful. Your directions were concise and specific, thank you so much. With that trellis stretching 35' how many grapes could I fit in it? I'm hoping I don't need two trellises, I plan to use the space beside it for berry bushes. Peachymomo, thank you for the link. Lots of good info there. My problem is when they try to describe various methods I get confused trying to decide which method is best. I just want The One True Way, lol. My plan is to only plant disease resistant varieties. It rains a lot here so I won't need to worry about rinsing the grapes. My neighbors don't have problems with mildew (in spite of the rain) so I think this must be a good area for grapes. I honestly don't care how it looks, I'm more interested in function.

Rope won't last very long inside a high tunnel unless it is UV protected. An alternate to rope is wire but if you want to do a better job support the roller hooks from perlins with a "S"-hook, one for each roller hook. "S" hooks come in any length you want from 6" to 36", are super sturdy and since they are directly attached to the perlin when you won't have many of of your roller hooks fly off a wire when you "twang" the wire...and it will happen. I have not used the roller hooks but use the tomahooks. When I built my first high tunnel (20x96) I didn't think the frame would support the tomato weight and being impressed with high tensile fencing I burried telephone poles, braced and twitched, at each end of the high tunnel and strung 9 guage, 1800 lb, tensile strength wire through the high tunnel using a single open chain link and metal strap attached to arches to just hold the wire up. It works but I would never do that again. When I take one tomahook off the wire 5 others spring off as well For my followup High tunnel (30x96) I have 8 perlins that the "S" hooks are always hanging from. I slide them along the perlin to position them when starting plants on stringline. Center perlins have longer "S" hooks, two tomato rows per perlin; side perlins have shorter ones. You still want your roller hooks at least 7-8 ft. high IMO to allow plants room to grow while keeping ripening fruit between knee and shoulder height. Your roller hooks will be easier to lower plants than my tomahooks but the price for 800 roller hooks puts them out of my price range. I got all of my tomahooks at auction for practically peanuts b/c nobody knew what they were. So if you still want to tension the wire go to a Tractor Supply store or order the "In-line strainers" online from a high tensile fence supply outlet. Some strainers are meant to be tensioned with a special tool, others are tightened with a 1/2" rachet wrench. They are usually $2-$3 each and will last as long as your galvanized structure. Oh, the "S" hooks are available from greenhouse supply centers (ref. Nolts Supply, Leola, PA) and they cost ~$12- $37.50 (36") for bundles of 100.

The farmer's wife is market master and she called me about my insurance certificate, I asked about baling twine and they said it should last 1 season here outside. Didn't get started today, so will do it tomorrow AM (probably take me 3 AMs to get all the plants out, over 100 tomatoes and peppers). Then have to plant the seeds for other stuff - going to be a busy week! Off to TSC to get grounding rods for electric fence and check out baling twine (I don't know if I should ask my dad to take 800ft+ out of the baler when he still has 2 more fields to hay this month - might get 3 cuttings this year). I'm going with the natural instead of the poly since whatever I don't use, we can use in the baler later. Thanks for the link - I knew about no suckering above the top blossoms, but didn't know to look for a sucker *with* blossoms and main stem w/o them! I have already suckered (and taken blossoms off) the largest plants, hope I didn't do that by mistake - or sucker a det type (I don't know what my cousin gave me, but we'll see).