Bleeding grapevine...advice needed

[Greenmantle]

I inherited a vast rambling grape vine at my new property which had been allowed to climb over the shed roof, and 30 feet up a pine tree. Consequently it had very small, poor quality fruits the last two years. Having read up on how to prune it, I cut it back quite dramatically, to two buds, just before Christmas, when the sap was dormant, and it did not bleed at all at the time.

I now have new buds forming all over which is encouraging, but 4 places where I had to cut quite thick vines to get it out of the tree, (slightly thicker than my thumb) have now started bleeding alarmingly. A steady drip, drip. I bought some Prune & Seal gum made by Arbex, and have applied two coats, first scorching the cut ends with a blow torch as directed on the instructions, but it has had no effect. The sap still oozes unchecked, and is probably preventing the gum from setting.

I guess I should sealed it when I first pruned it, and it was a dry wound, but I was advised it wouldn't be necessary.

Will it stop bleeding as new growth develops and takes up the sap, or is it likely to bleed to death?
Any ideas for stopping it?

Many thanks guys

Andy

[ethandron]

i hacked my very old outdoor grapevine back last summer and it did exactly the same - drip, drip, drip. i didn't do anything to it and it did eventually stop, it didn't bleed to death and no harm seems to have been done to it. i'm just hoping i'm going to get some grapes again this year, my hacking took all the flowers and baby grapes last year.

[Greenmantle]

Thanks Ethan...that's very reassuring. Especially if you pruned your actually in the growing season.... Guess I will just have to let nature readjust itself!

[coccinelle]

Our vines do that every year, it's when the sap begins to rise. It's quite normal. Walk in a vineyard and the vines there do it too. A vine needs to suffer to produce fruit, that's what the french say anyway.

[ethandron]

probably not the best time of year for us to have chopped ours back, but it needed to be done due to some major garden sorting out.
i'm going to have a bash at making wine with our grapes this year, assuming the vine produces any. in the past, i've just let the birds have them, they're not very nice tasting for eating. i've bought all the necessary stuff for making it and have all the info so we'll see.
coccinelle, we're heading over to la belle france (south of beziers) for our usual 6-7 weeks later in the year. you're lucky living there. we once had a row of vines and the wine they produced, for one year, as a christmas present, and have photos of us with 'our' vines when we visited them.