On May 2nd we got a nightime freeze down to 29*F and then again on May 3rd it got down to 26*F in the vineyards. Many of the vines had shoots with buds that had burst into small leaves.
Fortunately, because of previous experences with late spring freezes, when I did my early rough pruning I not only kept the canes on the cordon/spur fairly long (3 feet) but I also laid down new canes whenever I could and left them as long as possible. My hope was that because the buds open first at the ends of the canes and last at the start of the canes, that I would have some more "closed" buds that would not suffer as much damage if we got a late spring freeze.
It seems to have served me well this year. After final pruning (which would normally be down to 2 buds per cane on spurs) I had some losses on the canes that were from the cordon/spurs but very little loss from the the extra-long new canes that I laid down. After pruning these new canes down to 3 feet on each side of the vine it looks like I ended up with enough buds to get a full crop.
I'll try to leave renewal buds again this year in hopes of having replacement canes for the older cordons again next year. I may even consider going to cane pruning completely instead of cordon/spur pruning in future years.
Overall, the vines look good at this point.
