C6 - Vineyard Management (reviewed) Flashcards
What are the three main considerations a producer may need to make when choosing a site?
Environmental conditions -
- Average temperature, Rainfall, Sunlight, Soil fertility, Drainage
Business considerations:
- Proximity to utility infrastructure (power, water etc.),
- Availability of a vineyard workforce,
- Accessibility for machinery Cost of land
Grape variety:
- It must suit climatic conditions,
- Demand,
- Legal restrictions
How is a new vineyard prepared?
- Existing vegetation is cleared
- Fertility tested (and corrected with fertiliser if necessary)
- Young vines are planted by hand or machine
- Vines protected from animals with plastic sleeves
- Irrigation allowed to help young vines establish themselves
- First yield usually comes 3 years after planting
Why is irrigation allowed in some places after new vines have been planted?
To allow the vines to establish themselves
Discuss vine age.
- First yield usually come in the third year after planting
- They are kept until they are 30-50 years old on average before being replaced
- Upside of old vines: greater concentration of flavours
- Downside: lower yield, more susceptible to disease
For how long is a vineyard typically left fallow after the vines are dug up?
- Three or more years
- A vineyard will have a replanting cycle that ensures as little of their vineyard is out of production at any point in time
What are the main techniques used to manage a vine? How will they adapt it?
Four main techniques:
- Training
- Pruning
- Trellising
- Planting density
These techniques are adapted based on
- Temperature
- Sunlight
- Water
- Soil nutrients
What is the ultimate goal of a grape-grower?
To maximise the production of fruit at the desired quality level as economically as possible
What is vine training?
The shape of the permanent wood of the vine. Two main training tpyes:
- Head training
- Cordon training
Both can be
- Low trained - to benefit from heat retained by the soil or
- High trained - to avoid frosts
Describe a head-trained vine
- They have very little permanent wood
- Some have only a trunk
- Some have a few arms growing from the trunk
- They can be spur-pruned or replacement cane pruned
Describe a vine which is cordon trained
- A trunk with one or two arms of permanent wood
- Usually spur pruned
- The sturdy permanent cordon with shoots positioned along its length, makes mechanisation easier
- It can take longer to establish because of the greater amount of permanent wood
- Can also be used to create big vine structures
What is vine pruning?
The removal of unwanted leaves, canes and permanent wood to shape the vine and limits its size. Happens every summar and winter
- Summer pruning: Trimming the canopy to restrict vegetative growth and direct sugar production to the grape It can involve leaf stripping so that bunches have optimal exposure to the sun
-
Winter pruning:
- Determines the number and location of buds that will form shoots in the coming season.
- Ensuring the buds are not too close to each other helps with canopy management (the green parts of the vine)
Why is it important to ensure that buds are not too close together?
To help with canopy management aka managing all green parts of the vine
What are the two styles of winter pruning? Describe.
Spur pruning -
- Spurs are short sections of one year old wood
- Spurs are either distributed along a cordon or around the top of the trunk
- 2 or 3 bud per spur
Replacement cane pruning (also called Guyot training)
- Typically one or two canes are retained
- Each cane is tied horizontally to the trellis for support
- Most common on head-trained vines
- It requires a large, skilled workforce to choose suitable canes and train them It is more complex than spur pruning
- 8-20 buds per cane
What is a grower’s most important concern when considering canopy management?
Whether to use Trellis or leverage Bush vine
Trellis:
- Permanent structure of stakes and wires, used to support any replacement canes and the vine’s annual growth
- Suitable for machine harvest as the trellis separates leaves from grapes
Bush vine (or Gobelet):
- The vines do not have a trellis system and the shoots can hang down as far as the ground,
- Extra shade helps to protect the grapes
- They are head-trained and spur pruned
- Ideal for Warm/hot, dry, sunny (e.g, Southern Rhône, Barossa)
- Not recommended for cool climate as the shade can impede grape ripening and lack of airflow can promote disease
- Not suitable for mechanical harvesting
Describe vines in Beaujolais
- They are head-trained and spur-pruned
- The buds are tied together at the tips, helping to expose bunches to air and sunlight
Describe the two main aspects of trellised vineyards. What is their collective term?
- Each row of vines requires a line of posts joined by horizontal wires
- Canes and shoots are tied to the trellis
- Canopy management
What are the main reasons for canopy management?
- To control the amount of sunlight that gets to the canopy
- To improve air circulation (important for wet climates)
- To aid mechanisation (havesting, spraying more effective)
What are the benefits of separating leaves and fruit via trellis system?
- Makes mechanical harvesting possible
- Spraying of insecticides and fungicides is more effective
What is the most widely used trellising system?
Vertical Shoot Positioning (VSP)
- Shoots are trained vertically and tied in place onto the trellis
- Both prunning methods are possible
In hot sunny regions
- VSP is adapted by allowing the shoot to flop over, providing some shade for the fruit rather than tying the top of the shoots
- A grape grower choose adapted VSP (over bush vine training) as it allows for mechanisation
Describe planting density.
- Measured by the number of vines planted in a given area (100m sides area)
- Rough range is 1,000 - 10,000 vines per hectare
- Density depends on availability of nutrients and water
- Low planting density allows each vine’s roots to take up water from a larger volume of soil without any competition
How does an acre relate to a hectare?
One acre is approximately 0.4 hectares
Explain the factors that can influence the grower’s decision regarding density
Availability of nutrients and water
Very limited water availability:
- Low planting density can be beneficial as it allows each vine’s roots to ake up water from a large voume of soil without having to compete
Low levels of nutrients but sufficient water:
- Plant at high density to provide competition for resources and production of a lot of green vegetative growth.
- Also ensuring the right number of buds after winter pruning is also important. If there are too few buds, each will have access to too much energy and grow vigorously. if too many buds, the vine will struggle to ripen the crop load.
High levels of nutrients and sufficient water:
- Not suitable for viticulture and high density planting may not be enough to limit the growth => use low density planting with vines with multiple cordons or canes. This can often produce good quality wines at high yields
How may pruning be used to affect vine vigour in a well watered area? Describe why accuracy is important.
Careful winter pruning can affect vine vigour
Too few buds left means the buds will have too much energy in the form of carbohydrates and will grow too vigorously and vice versa
What are the human-controlled factors in the vineyard which can affect vine vigour?
- Planting density
- Pruning
