Canopy Management: Achieving the Proper Microclimate

Today, I am reading The Role of Canopy Management in Vine Balance and came across this:
The goal of vineyard production is to achieve vine balance where adequate canopy size and sunlight exposure result in more favorable and sustainable vine growth and fruit quality requiring fewer direct canopy management methods during the growing season.¹
I'm all for this because we seem to be spending all our days in the vineyard engaged in the task of canopy management. We are doing this because we know that in order to get the best quality grapes, there are certain practices that we need to follow to achieve optimum air flow and sunlight exposure. When we do these tasks such as shoot positioning and leaf pulling, we affect the microclimate of the main canopy and the fruit zone.
Important growth responses influenced by microclimate.

Growth Response
Fueling the canopy	• outer layer of leaves is the most efficient in using sunlight to produce carbohydrates via photosynthesis • 94% of the sunlight is absorbed or reflected from the outer surface/leaves of the vine canopy •leaves in the inner canopy become net users of nutrients rather than producers of more carbohydrates
Developing buds and fruit for next year	• buds for growth next year are initiated in late spring and early summer on shoots grown in the current season • adequate sunlight exposure of shoots is critical to obtain sufficient floral initiation for achieving fruitfulness of shoots in the next season • conversely, buds that develop on shoots in dense canopies with low light exposure have fewer inflorescences (flower clusters) per shoot than those canopies that are better exposed
Reducing disease	• a less dense canopy allows for increased air flow, faster drying of leaves, and improved spray penetration • a properly maintained canopy is less conducive to disease infection and outbreaks, and they also improve the efficacy of spray applications
Enhancing fruit quality	• in highly vigorous vineyards with dense canopies, fruit can have high pH and unripe flavors caused by compounds in the berries (i.e. methoxypyrazines or C6 alcohols such as hexanol) • canopies with open fruit zones and well exposed fruit can result in higher sugars, color (anthocyanins), and positive aroma and flavor compounds such as norisoprenoids and terpenes

It takes a long time to do canopy management by hand. In thick over grown canopies, we have some of those, one of our 800 feet rows can take 7 hours per person, usually with 2 people working, so a total of 14 man/woman hours. Given this reality, and the fact that we would always like to produce quality fruit, we are trying to think of solutions to ameliorate this situation for next year.
Here is what we have come up with:

• We are Rethinking Our Vineyard Trellis. If we raise our fruiting wire, the distance between the fruiting wire and the first catchwire is only 8 inches. We feel that in the first growth spurt after budbreak, our vines will more likely be able to reach the first catch wires at 8 inches and stay within the catch wire boundaries as they grow.
• During the first grand growth phase after budbreak, we feel that we must keep an eye on the amount of rain the young shoots are seeing. We want the internode distance to be of sufficient spacing so we will have our irrigation system on stand by if lack of rain during this time becomes an issue.

References:
1. Amanda J. Vance, Alison L. Reeve and Patricia A. Skinkis, The Role of Canopy Management in Vine Balance, EM 9071, June 2013.