Saturday, July 30, 2022

Canopy Management in the Auxerrois

We are continuining canopy management in our vineyard. We are currently in the Auxerrois engaged in the gentle art of leaf pulling. There are only so many leaves that we want to pull off because we want the rest to be left for photosynthesis, we are only pulling the leaves on the east side of the trellis. Here are before and after photos of leaf pulling:
During leaf pulling, we make sure that the developing clusters are not entwined in each other and in the trellis post. The Auxerrois is an interesting grape because it can have as many as three clusters per shoot.
While leaf pulling, we are also making sure that all of the shoots are tucked into the trellis and we cut off any summer laterals (secondary shoots) that are sticking out of the canopy. We are also hedging the top of the canopy, since we have already hedged the canopy in early July, what we are hedging now consist mainly of summer laterals.
The Auxerrois is the first of our grapes to go into véraison so we know that we must ensure that the netting is ready to deploy.
These canopy management tasks have a profound difference in the look of the canopy. Here is a row of Auxerrois showing where shoot tucking, leaf pulling and hedging were done and a short section where the tasks still need to be attended to.
Next tasks, the rest of the 31 rows of grapes that we have!

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