[Tecla]

Hello everybody!

I’m thoroughly enjoying the vine pruning advanced course and have a couple of questions that I would love your help with.

– In video 2, 3 and 4 of the course it is mentioned that shoot A is selected 20-25cm below the cordon wire. However, there is an additional wire below (sometimes even 2 – so shoot A is actually above that wire). Which cordon wire are you supposed to take? Is the lowest wire not considered a wire?

– In the medium and strong vigour shoot selection (video 2+3) the buds are blinded. What is exactly ‘blinding the buds’ and what is the purpose of blinding the buds? Do you always keep the horizontal branch or only if you want to twist the buds on the trunk laterally so that they get in line with the row?
-video 8 (pruning a young plant: forming the trunk – about 06min:40sec into the video). Marco shows that the distance between the two shoots (the candidates to form the trunk) is not sufficient to make a cut respecting the crownbuds (and cut of the shoot that’s not used to form the trunk). As far as I understand and see, Marco cuts the shoot underneath the crownbuds and the crownbuds and the corona are on the cut branch. Do I see & understand this correctly and if so: is the wound not bigger and deeper if you cut off the crown buds and corona?

-general question: I assume that it has to do with climate and variety but are there particular reasons to choose spurred cordon over guyot?

Thank you so much for your help and have a wonderful day, Tecla

[TEAM VMP ACADEMY]

Hello Tecla,

I try to answer to your questions:

– The cordon wire it’s the one you want to bend the cordon. In the example is the second starting from ground level. Approximately at 70 CM from the ground. The wire below the is usually used to apply the water dipping pipe. The wires over are a couple useful for the shoots tucking.

– I can’t understand in which part of no 2 and 3 video you could find the buds blinded. Maybe you are talking about video no 4 ( medium vigour plant with the buds orientated laterally with respect to the axis and direction of the row).

First of all when you blind the buds it means you remove them and also their basal part, taking off a small part of wood in the cane immediately below them. After this operation (if it is well performed) there won’t be any shoot developed from them.

It is useful if you need a longer cane for Twisting the buds in the vertical part. If you would keep all the buds, the ones in the horizontal part would develope more than the others in the vertical part, because of acrotony. The result could be that the 4 shoots you need around 25 cm from cordon wire could not develop properly. For this reason you should remove them.

The case of strong vigour plant It is different. You keep the horizontal part and let the buds develop so that you can grow more shoots. In this way their vigour can be reduced and managed.

– in video n 8 Marco noticed there is not enough space to make a cut with a sufficient portion of spare wood in 2 years-wood portion. So he decided to cut off the cane not useful for the new trunk removing the crown buds. In this way he can have a little portion more of spare wood and the crown buds removal prevent this part to develope new shoots next spring ( Every time there is a shoot in spare wood it won’t dry) . So it can be dry next winter and you can remove a little more additional part. It’s a good choice whenever two shoots are very close And you have no space for a sufficient portion of spare wood.

– the choice for training system and the kind of pruning it is connected with : variety, fertility of basal buds, but also production objectives, vigour, soil, climate and also vIticultural tradition

I hope I answered to all your questions.

[Tecla]

Good evening,

Thank you so much for getting back to me so quickly and responding so extensively. Your answers are super helpful and I truly hope you do not mind that I have a couple of additional ones regarding your answers.

Ad 1. Understood.

Ad 2. Sincerest apologies and you are right: it is video 4. In case of the strong vigour plant: do you keep the buds on the top AND the bottom of the horizontal part of or only the buds on the top?

Ad 3. Since in all of the S&S materials it is always stressed to keep the corona and the corwn buds intact, I thought I had not understood/seen it correctly. My apologies for asking again but I really want to make sure I do this correctly: so if I remove crown buds and corona, I will not inflict permanent and/or more damage to the plant since it will now take longer for the plant to heal and I will create a bigger and deeper desiccation cone?

Ad 4. Understood.

Thank you so much and my apologies for the many questions :(.

Tecla

[TEAM VMP ACADEMY]

Hello again,

Ad 2 Maybe it’s not clear : you should keep all the buds in the vertical part and remove the buds on the orizontal part. Then you choose the shoots in spring In the vertical part as it is described. The orizontal part it is kept only because it is easier to turn the buds in the vertical part. But in fact when you remove the buds from this part it will become ‘dry wood’.

Ad3 Ok, the point is this: you have to cut off the shoot you don’t want to use as the new forming trunk. The basal buds must be kept or removed according to your goal. If we talk about spare wood the goal is to make it dry and then remove it. If we talk about the old wood you want to keep you, it must be preserved respecting the basal buds during the cuts.

If you check the pictures I added :

Pic.A : if you cut in that position in 2-years old wood you should follow the rule of spare wood (Length at least 2 time the diameter). But this internode is very short. So if you cut in that position the spare wood portion is not enough long and you can have a desiccation cone quite deep that overcome the basal part of the 2-years cane. Ok?

Pic B : if you cut in that position you can have a little longer spare wood that is ok.

Pic C : if you leave the basal buds in the plant they will grow at he budbrake and there is a possibility that they keep the part of spare wood alive. So you cannot cut it shorter the next season without the same effect I described in pic A.

Pic D : if you remove the basal buds, you can have a longer spare wood, that preserve the old diagphram (a barrer that preserve the wood below it). In the meanwhile removing the basal buds in the cane you don’t need you won’t have the bud break in that part and this fact help the spare wood to desiccate. So you can easily remove it next year leaving a very short portion, and preserving the old diagphram.

As I said, if you have to remove a cane in a old wood you want to keep for the future, you should preserve the basal buds, which help the wound to be healed and the desiccation cone is little. If you have to remove a cane inserted in a portion of spare wood that you don’t want to keep you should remove also the basal buds. You will have an efficient desiccation of spare wood. You don’t care about desiccation cone because you will remove that part anyway.

• This reply was modified 1 year, 2 months ago by  TEAM VMP ACADEMY.

[Tecla]

Good afternoon,

Thank you so much for the SUPER help! The pictures are the clue, I know now exactly what you mean and what I need to do. THANK YOU!

Have a wonderful weekend, Tecla