By now you may know that I am a perfectionist in the vineyard, which requires a lot of tromping back and forth, up and down the slopes. I’m finding that it has been getting progressively harder these past few years to find help in the vineyard. At the moment we are suckering the vines. The rain prevented us from working two days lastweek, so we had to work over the weekend to catch up. I’m hoping to get a big team this weekend to put a big dent on this operation.
What is Suckering? “Suckering” is the removal of all unnecessary shoots which grow on vines as weather warms up. This process can take up to two passes through the vineyards. The purpose is to focus the plants’ energy only on the shoots we want to bear fruit.
Once we are done with suckering, we’ll start putting the vine canes in the trellis so that they grow straight up and don’t fall to the ground. This operation is done twice, the first time to tuck them in the first wire, and the second one once the canes have passed the second wire.