CORNELL
UNIVERSITY		   FS430: Understanding Wine and Beer
Calendar
Readings: Jackson pgs 96 - 122
Slides

Principles of Vine Training and Canopy Management
Justine Vanden Heuvel

Producing quality wine grapes requires a balanced vine with good sun exposure of fruit and of leaves. Highly-shaded canopies have a higher incidence of disease and most importantly produce fruit that is low in Brix, high in acids, and low in flavor and aroma compounds. These highly-shaded canopies need to be managed in such a way as to improve the microclimate (i.e., light exposure) of the clusters.

Canopy management is defined as the positioning and maintaining of shoots and their fruit in order to achieve an optimal microclimate for grape quality, inflorescence formation, and cane maturation. Canopy management solutions for problem canopies can be divided into two categories: long-term and short-term. Long-term solutions include modifying training (generally canopy division to reduce vigor), use of deficit irrigation, reduced fertilization, and use of cover crops to increase competition for water and nutrients. Short-term (i.e., bandaid) solutions include hedging, leaf removal in the fruiting zone, and vigor diversion through the use of kicker canes.

Identifying problem canopies and appropriate canopy management tools to address these issues will be discussed in the presentation.

FS430 Revised 3.5.08