Finding Your Way to Vine Balance - PA Wine Grape Network

Canopy Management Practices
• Dormant pruning: it all starts here. Get the bud numbers right
• Manage the vine head and cane/cordon ends carefully
• Manage suckers
• If you have more than one cane or cordon or any combination per side of
vine, manage them according to shoots per linear distance
• June in the East is the critical month for vine balance (Jim Law). Be ready
for it!
• Shoot position like you mean it. The more vigorous a vine, the more
important shoot positioning becomes!
• Exposure and aeration comes from leaf and lateral removal, shoot and
cluster positioning, tunneling if a very vigorous canopy
• Hedge as much as you need to, no more or less
• Correct timing of positioning and wire placement is oh, OH so critical to
success!!!