After the 2007 harvest we did a study to know the physical characteristics of the shoots of our grapevines so as to better understand plant balance when deciding the type of pruning and grape thinning.
From the varieties of Grenache, Cabernet, Merlot, and Syrah, we chose 96 shoots of different lengths at random and the following data was analysed:
- Number of leaves
- Foliar surface
- Shoot length
- Shoot weight
- Shoot diameter
When comparing all these varieties, we could see that the Grenache shoot is the heaviest, the thickest, and the one with the highest foliar surface per shoot length. On the other hand, the Syrah variety shows the lowest values in all these aspects. The Merlot shoots are less heavy than those of Cabernet although they produce a bigger foliar surface.
But we are interested in getting data we can refer to, so we measured the 120cm shoots, which is the ideal length for the type of trellis system we have, and we got the following data: length: 120cm; weight: 46gr; diameter: 8mm at the base; foliar surface: 0.25m2.
The parameters of this first study were the base for our future studies on vigour. Little by little we tried to understand grapevine behaviour and later on we did a very interesting study on these concepts.
Tags: vine, foliar surface, vigor