Vintage 2021: Pruning Update

At the beginning of the month I blogged about Vintage 2021: March Pruning Time. This blogpost is an update on where we are. We have friends who come to help us with this activity (thought for a moment to call it "chore" but "activity" is much more positive!)
Our vineyard is comprised of 36 rows of vines and each row is around 800 feet long. From west to east, we have 5 rows of Auxerrois, 17 rows of Chenin Blanc, 8 rows of Chardonnay, 2 rows each of Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc and Barbera.
From past experience, we know that the Chardonnay and the Auxerrois are the first to budbreak so we prune those vines first. This year we are also pruning the red varieties before the Chenin Blanc. This year, we are trying something a little different. The steps are still the same, but now we are doing them concurrently:

• Lower netting in order to cut tendrils, remove Agfast and cut wire on last year's fruiting cane

• Cut the tops of last year's shoots, now 1 year old canes; cut these shoots shorter than the shoots that will possibly be used for this year's fruiting canes
• Raise netting
• Do the final pruning leaving potential canes to lay down
• Lay canes down on the fruiting wire
• Rake up the cuttings for later removal

Our friends have been coming to rake up the cuttings that are in the vineyard rows. About one third of the vineyard now has the canes laid down in preparation for budbreak.

We have about half the vineyard pruned at this point and another half to go!