Archive for May 10th, 2011

A Vineyard Management class at DuCard Vineyards

Saturday's vineyard management class was the second of four at DuCard Vineyards, in Etlan, Virginia.  We've been working with a section of Norton vines, and we'll be seeing them through until the harvest.  Lots of work done is while we're not there (spraying, among other things), but we're doing much (well, some) of the essential work on the vines.

Scott Elliff, the vineyard's owner, has been migrating his vineyard from a Geneva Double Curtain trellising system to a modified Lyre system, so in our first class, we worked on pruning vines to facilitate that transition.  Both GDC and Lyre are divided canopy systems in which the trunk of the vine is planted in the middle of two sets of trellis wires about four feet apart.  With GDC, the vines grow downward, like a waterfall on each side of the row.  With Lyre, they run up. Continue Reading–>