ZABIBU

It takes some nerve to cut the trunk of a vine right back down if we are forced to when we prune as I dont always believe that it will push canes again as there never seem to be any sign of buds below the pruning wound. Somehow they seem to want to grow and out they come.

The good thing is that we are not as contrained in this part of the world to one growing season as we have two growing seasons a year to work with. We prune the vines at the end of March and let them grow but do not allow them to fruit, and then we prune again in October and do allow them to fruit. So we have a training season and a fruiting season.

I believe they do this in the vineyards in India too. Does anyone know any more about this?

We have to let the vines build up some reserves although we still focus on allowing the canes closest to the trunk to get most light so that on in the October pruning we can maximise fruit quality as the buds will have been well exposed to sunshine and will be in best condition for fruiting.

I will post some current images from the vineyard and the new spring growth soon.