Suckering!

This is my cork lady's baby Ted.  It was a nice change of pace to have baby-smell in the lab instead of corks.

This time in May the vineyard Crew is done with the first pass of Suckering.

Suckering is necessary because after budbreak, when the buds start pushing and shoots start growing, they grow from everywhere.  This kind of uncontrolled growth is not good for fruit quality.  The goal is to concentrate the vine's resources to ripen fruit, not to grow as much vegetation as possible.

The vineyard crew strategically removes all shoots that are not coming directly out of the buds left from pruning.  All the green from the trunk and cordon gets stripped out and only 2 (or 1 for weak spurs) shoot is left per spur.

The cordons on these vines have 4 spurs on each side for a total of 8 spur positions.  This is a strong spur, so 2 shoots were left during suckering.  Each shoot usually has 2 cluster.  Typically 1 vine = (8 spurs) *( 2 shoots per spur) * (2 clusters per shoot) = 32 clusters

This spur position is thinner than the previous and therefore slightly weaker and only 1 shoot was left even though 2 were originally growing.  If you leave too many shoots on a weak position it's called Over Cropping and the vine will over extend it's resources and have trouble ripening all the fruit and the fruit will be lower quality.

The shoot on the left is strong, green and healthy.  The shoot coming out of the right spur position is weak yellow and diseased.  This has a wood rooting disease called Eutypa.  Fortunately it moves very slowly through the wood (a few inches a year), so during suckering if the guys see a diseased spur they mark it with tape and then it will be cut off later.

This is what the vines looks like when they are all suckered.  During this time of year with all the sun and warm weather they grow quickly, so a second pass of suckering will begin toward the end of May to further focus the vine's photosynthetic energy away from creating more green leaves and further towards ripening fruit.

-Lucia