Canopy management

It is carried out in spring and summer as pruning takes place mainly in the green organs of the vine. It affects all portions of vegetative until before the harvest in order to keep the size of the canopy, ensure that the screw is not only a large leaf surface, but functional, avoid unfavorable microclimatic conditions around the clusters, improve the penetration of the treatment and movement of machines. The operations of pruning are suckering, the suckering, the sfemminellatura, tying the shoots, pollarding, defoliation and eventual thinning of the bunches.
Suckering is the elimination of the suckers, that is, the fresh shoots that grow from old wood on the stem of the vine from latent buds or old nodal portions. The usefulness of this operation eliminates organs that otherwise made the dense foliage taking over.
The suckering is the removal of sprouts while leaving the fruiting are sterile and do not need to prune the following year, especially in the long pruned vines. The purpose of this operation is to prevent the foliage to increase throughout, must be done as soon as possible (in budding still in progress) when the shoots are still tender. In cases of screws that are too weak to have all the fertile shoots, not to weaken them too much, you have deleted some bud uvifero, conversely always weak in the vines with buds of fruiting sterile, most of them are eliminated to foster the development of the buds of the spur and the good education of their gems.To help the growth of rooted cuttings are important backups. The galvanized stakes are fitted with fine ribbed sheet metal because it does not rust and do not leave traces in the ground
The sfemminellatura consists of the removal of new shoots originated from buds ready, that is, the total abolition of femminelle.
These three operations are performed, at the latest, together with the ligation of the shoots, which is made to direct upward and channel between the pairs of wires with the aim of managing the form of espalier, allow the passage of the operating machines not compromise the efficiency of plant protection treatments and avoid shading with adverse effects on photosynthesis. Once the sprouts channeled through the wires containment proceed to any manual or mechanical fastening to galvanized stakes, this operation is carried out with shoots about 1 m long.
The topping is a technique that allows the removal of a longer or shorter period of shoots, whether femminelle basal vegetative apex. This practice has the purpose of reducing the vegetation and renew the leaf wall, obtaining the issuance of new femminelle with the formation of leaves photosynthetically active in the period of ripening of the grapes, also reduces the bundling of the vegetation at the level of the clusters, tends to reduce the incidence of gray mold. The surgery should be performed by the end of June, in order to stop the elongation of the young sprout that comes at the expense of reserve substances, so the topping reduces the consumption of these substances for the benefit of production also diverting the flow of sap from the apex to the bunches, improves its enlargement.
The defoliation consists in suppressing on fruiting shoots a number of leaves in order to better expose the grapes to the sun. It 'a practice that takes place in prevendemmia by the hair too dense, on the stretch of the basal end production, to air and expose to indirect radiation in the clusters so as to cause an increase in sugars and coloration due to the formation of anthocyanins which can lead a decrease in acidity and an improved state of health of the grapes. The basal leaves are removed from the individual branches during the last period before the harvest no longer play an active role with regard to the ripening of the grapes, and therefore can be suppressed, because those older than 120 days do not contribute more to the accumulation of sugars .
The thinning of the bunches is an agronomic practice that involves the elimination of a portion of bunches, it is only performed manually, usually at veraison, taking care to remove the clusters more distant the shoot. This is recommended for late ripening grape, berry large and very productive, is made of vineyards aimed at the production of fine and table grapes. The best results are achieved in years with adverse weather conditions, which leads to delays in the flowering stage, so even dell'allegagione and veraison, hindering photosynthesis, translocation and accumulation of carbohydrates in the cluster, allowing limited chances of a perfect ripening of the grapes.
Other operations of pruning are combing, performed at the end of June (between flowering and fruit set) of farming systems in GDC, which consists of having down the long shoots 70-80 cm in order to avoid bundling of vegetation , and calatura by which the clusters are arranged down the canopy forms.