Vine Life - Pruning

Between now and harvest in April 2011, we are going to blog the growing season of a Seresin vine to show how we manage our vineyards and what being biodynamic means for us. Every time we touch this vine, be it pruning, leaf-plucking, or spraying compost tea we'll show you what we're doing and why.

Outside our Cellar Door are a few rows of Semillon vines, the fruit from which makes up around 5 per cent of our Seresin Sauvignon Blanc each year. We have chosen one of these vines to profile.

Yesterday brought the first job of the growing season for this Semillon vine; pruning it to remove last years growth and getting the plant ready to grow again. Here Wendy is removing some of the old wood.

While Semillon is typically spur pruned, we also prune almost all the vines on our estate the same way, which is not so typical. There's a great picture here which shows the difference between spur and cane pruning. We find that spur pruning gives us more control of how the vine grows and the spacing between the shoots. It also means that the vine naturally yields less fruit, which improves quality. It also makes the vine hardier, and gives it a buffer against damage from frost and grass grub.

Coming Out of Winter

We’ve had rather wet winter this year, but temperatures are starting to rise already (along with the daffodils) and in no time at all, budburst will be here. In the meantime, we’ve been busy pruning the vines, through June, July and August. Most of our vines are spur pruned. For this type of pruning, we cut out the canes (shoots that are now woody) that grew last year, but keep a “spur” of wood with 2 buds at the base of the cane. It will be these buds that will provide the bunches for this years’ crop. Some of the canes are completely removed to allow for better sun exposure and airflow, as well as to ‘guide’ how many bunches the vine will produce. Most of the canes we cut out get mulched in the vine rows and the woodchips break down naturally into the soil. This year, some of our canes were collected, mulched, and used in our compost. They provide a great source of woody material (carbon source) for our compost. Making compost is another main winter activity for us. To learn more about how and why we make compost, have a look at our composting blog.