Various Pruning Techniques

The three pictures above show the various pruning techniques which we are employing at Cassel Vineyards of Hershey in order to find the best technique to suite each variety. On the left is our High Wire technique which we are using on our Chambourcin and Concord varieties. This technique employs one wire at 5 feet on which we train two canes from each grapevine. The vines then cascade down and bear their fruit on the top wire. The center photo shows our VSP or Vertical Shoot Placement method which is we are using for both the Chardonnay and the Vidal Blanc. VSP allows the plants to branch to the left and right on a 3 foot high fruiting wire. As the canes send out shoots, we then tuck each shoot up between two catch wires located at the 4 foot and 5.5 foot level. this keeps the grapes from being covered by foliage but allows the plants to grow vigorously upward to produce plenty of sugar to store in the grapes. The final picture on the right shows our Scott Henry pruning technique which provides two fruiting wires at 3 and 4 feet and catch wires below and above the fruiting wires. In this way we train our Cabernet Franc vines both upward and downward away from the grape clusters and drain excess vigor from the plants to avoid a vegetative taste in the fruit. The pruning takes a good deal of time and labor but we think it makes a difference in the quality of the wine. We hope you agree.