Impact of Grapevine Pruning on Water Use Efficiency, Vegetative Growth, Biochemical Content, Yield and Fruit Quality of Black Magic Grape

Pruning is a critical component of grape production as it aims to maintain the balance between yield, fruit quality, and vegetative growth. This experiment carried out to study the effects of different cane lengths per vine on water use efficiency, vegetative growth, leaf biochemical, berry chemical & physical composition, and yield of Black Magic grapevines to determine the optimum cane length to leave on the vines to achieve the highest possible water use efficiency and yield with the best vegetative growth, chemical and physical composition while maintaining vine vigor during two consecutive seasons 2022 and 2023. Treatments were as follows: 14 canes with 4 buds, 14 canes with 5 buds, 14 canes with 6 buds, 14 canes with 7 buds, and 14 canes with 8 buds. Results revealed that all cane lengths per vine had a substantial effect on the examined attributes throughout both seasons. It was discovered that vines trimmed at 14 canes with 6 buds in both terms gave the best ethics of most studied features, such as water use efficiency, leaf area, shoot length, cane thickness, pruning weight, chlorophyll content, concentration of leaf mineral elements (nitrogen, phosphorous, potassium, and calcium), crude protein, total soluble solids, total anthocyanin content in berry skin, weight and volume of berry, berry firmness, total yield, and reduced total acidity. Pruning regulates production by selecting sufficient buds to match the vine’s capacity, enhancing water use efficiency, yield and grape cluster quality, and contributing to more efficient and sustainable cultivation of Black Magic grapevine